I had originally intended this post to be about a philanthropic project, Dress Up Against AIDS. Brazilian artist Adriana Bertini has designed 14 garments entirely made from factory rejected condoms and meant to be used in raising awareness -- and presumably funding -- for the fight against AIDS.
At the end of this post, it was my intention to provide a link where you could make a donation, if you were so inclined. And that's when all the trouble started.
Knee-jerk reactions against advertising prevent a lot of colleges and universities from raising more money than they could.
In my work with colleges and universities, I've found their in-house marketing people to be not only very bright but extraordinarily dedicated to be willing to put up with the attitudes of their own coworkers.
Academics, like so many other misguided people, think disparaging advertising is the role of all thinking, well-educated people. Of course, that's ridiculous. (See What would the world be like without advertising?)
In this case, the fight against AIDS is losing potential funding.
After much googling in my search for where to send you if you wanted to donate to the Dress Up Against AIDS project, I discovered that Columbia College in Chicago is displaying the condom dresses until January 4.
Great, I thought, I'll send readers to the college to make a donation.
That would have been a good idea if Columbia College had thought to put donation information on the part of its website dedicated to AIDS awareness. It didn't.
I can bet what happened. The very well-intentioned types in charge of the AIDS projects at the college didn't want to 'sully' their good works by involving any advertising or marketing types in their mission. It had never occurred to them that people reading about their philanthropic endeavors would be moved to make a donation on the spot -- something the most junior of advertising people could have told them would happen.
One wonders how much additional money in the fight against AIDS Columbia College would have raised if they'd had a little more respect for the work of their coworkers in advertising and marketing.
Source: Trend Hunter and Columbia College Chicago