They really do help. My education has heavily insisted on weighing each purchase carefully (anything not immediately consumable I bought without announcing the intention at least a day before for debate and "sleeping on it" would be returned to the shop post-haste) so for me getting something tangible in return emotionally justifies spending and allows me to overcome psychological barriers that intellectual rationalisation simply doesn't.

That said, in this particular case it wouldn't work at all, because 1) these shirts are butt-ugly and 2) I don't see the point in giving money to nations richer and more efficient than my own.

I don't know how much these sorts of campaigns actually help. Usually there is a set amount to which the company will ultimately pay-out to charity - if they ever do! Has anyone followed up on this?! So even if RL is claiming 100% of the proceeds is going to Japan, that could mean anything from the *one* shirt at $98 to however few they decide to manufacture and sell.

I do give RL more credit for having a direct link to the charity at least.

I find the products that are branded with a cause (pink ribbons, for example) but do not even claim to donate any of the proceed to the cause, are more problematic. It's equivalent to Green Washing - "Cause Washing" if you will.

The other day I saw a woman wearing a t-shirt printed with an outline of Africa, and inside the outline the text: "100% of the proceeds from this shirt benefit my image." I thought it was clever. Items like this help people project a certain image, and in that sense, offer something of practical value while also giving them that 'ethical fix.'

I've sometimes been attracted to such efforts when the item to be purchased is something attractive and distinctive enough that I would keep it, use or wear it often, and be reminded of the cause itself. An example would be the local art auction to benefit mental illness. Or the empty bowl luncheons held to benefit food banks around the country.

"I honestly don’t really understand the point of these types of products. If you want to help out, why not just donate directly to a group involved in relief efforts? Why the need to get something for yourself in return?"

Ralph Lauren is making a donation to Japan (with your help), not you yourself. You're buying a nice new shirt that you'd want anyway (assuming this product appeals to you). I don't think the point is that you're helping Japan less than you would be by writing out a $1000 check to United Way -- the point is, this shirt helps Japan a lot more than your buying the regular blue Ralph Lauren button-down does. Someone who's serious about helping Japan as much as possible would be looking at unitedway.org, not ralphlauren,com, to start with.

People give more to charity if their contribution is socially recognized:
http://karlan.yale.edu/p/circlesv7.pdf

Perhaps we can see these consumption-charity actions as a form of slacktivism?

http://thesocietypages.org/sociologylens/2010/01/11/facebook-slacktivism-some-perspective/

I often think of this when I see undergraduates wearing Toms shoes. Is it necessary to purchase goods in order to "show" your commitment to charity? Is this really a form of charity or is it merely a form of conspicuous consumption aimed at displaying one's humanism?

I know of no instances in which a person donates without expecting a return: their name on a program; an evening out at a banquet recognizing their contribution to the opera, theatre, orphanage, etc; merit toward entering Heaven; a tax deduction; a feeling of self-righteousness; etc., etc. etc.

Perhaps if I had a choice between two products I clearly needed (say, a jar of peanut butter), which were the same price, and one was good for a good cause, and another was not, I would choose the latter.

One from World Rugby Shop: http://www.worldrugbyshop.com/25241-wh.html

Japan does have a rugby team, albeit fairly new.

Actually, just on a side note, "proceeds" refers to the purchase price of a product. So in this case, for each shirt, the entire $98-110 goes to United Way, assuming we can take the ad at face value. I agree that it's hard to check up on that kind of thing, and just because a company is large & established doesn't mean it's ethical, but I doubt Ralph Lauren would run a scam by using weasel-words in the ad to get out of paying United Way, whose logo is being used in the ad so we know that there is some kind of partnership between the two. Backed by contracts and lawyers and whatnot.

In giving the "proceeds," Ralph Lauren is essentially donating their cost of the shirt (design, manufacture, transportation minus individual shipping cost, advertising, overhead) in order to garner $98-110 donations from individuals. So, depending on how much they're paying at the factory, Ralph Lauren is actually donating $1.50-$5.00 or whatever the shirt actually costs them to make. And I suppose you could factor in the cost of applying the image of a premium luxury brand to a charity campaign, but that cost may be recouped by the feel-good vibes reflected back at Ralph Lauren for doing the campaign.

I've seen other ads where companies offer to donate "X percentage of profits" on a product. That's a lot less than donating "X percentage of the proceeds" because they're not even donating a percentage of the cost of goods; they're just giving a bit off the top after everything's paid for.

Some days ago the shopping mall of my city made a thing similiar to that, it was something about buying underwear and helping the cancer victims, later I discovered that for each underwear bought some cents would be sent to the cancer hospital.

Too bad they're not donating the proceeds from the shirt to the sweatshops in which it was doubtlessly produced.

When the earthquake hit Haiti last year, Jacob Connexion (a Canadian clothing retailer that is kind of comparable to American Eagle or something along those lines) sold some T-shirts to benefit the earthquake victims. I run a women's charity in my community, and we threw together a fundraiser for Haiti really quickly, and we found these shirts so we decided to encourage the event volunteers to buy some. It was actually a great way to identify the volunteers at the event, and to support Haiti - they're also cute shirts! I don't see what's wrong with humanitarian consumption; isn't that better than just plain old consumption, after all? Like someone said upthread, if your resources are limited and you need some new clothes, you're killing two birds with one stone by purchasing this shirt.

Granted, at $100 a pop, I don't think this shirt is for those who have limited means. The ones my friends and I bought at Jacob were about $15.

There was an xkcd comic on this topic recently: http://xkcd.com/871/

I think about this every time I see the yogurt ads that tell you to send in their lids and they'll donate 1 cent for every lid they receive up to a certain amount of money (maybe a million dollars or something). Wouldn't people be spending more on postage than the company is donating? It costs at least 47 cents to mail it in, right? You'd have to mail in more than 47 lids for it to make sense. But even then, 47 lids would cost even more to mail. It drives me crazy.

That said, I agree with the commenters who said that if they were going to buy the product anyway then they'd like the option of the money going to a good cause.

I'd say it's cultural capitalism like Zizek would say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g

This is nothing more than anecdotal evidence, but I'm sure that this sort of thing does work (in terms of, people will buy it).

I work in fashion retail for a high end Australian label, named for its designer, a fairly famous woman well known in Australia for regularly putting her foot in her mouth. Despite this, it's a really popular label because the designs are unique, and high quality, but also quite expensive.

Last year, she caused a huge scandal over a comment relating to sexual abuse. It was all over the front pages of the papers, on the television, people were really outraged, calling the store and yelling at us, saying they would never shop here again, etc etc. She apologised and said she would have a "Sorry Sale", in which nothing would actually be on sale, but 100% of the proceeds from that day in all the stores would go to a charity that helps women who have suffered sexual abuse.

It was the most phenomenal day - it was busier than Boxing Day sales. People were crowded around the doors waiting for us to open when I opened the doors at 9am. I think partly it was because of the huge publicity we'd had (for better or worse), partly people who had been wanting to buy themselves something but weren't able to justify it until now. People were buying MUCH more than they ordinarily would, I assume because they knew it was going to charity. But, not only that - they're getting something they want, as well.

I guess if someone had been having fashion fantasies about a Ralph Lauren polo, but couldn't justify the splurge on it, this could be what it takes for them to finally buy one. It seems kind of a win/win situation (for the customer and for the charity). Of course we don't know exactly how much will go to the cause... but it's still better than nothing. Certainly a lot better than the situations when buying something just adds to "awareness" of a cause.

Unless you have the knowledge that RL do not in fact donate the proceeds as promised, I don't see any reason for the outrage.

Eh, I figure it's like buying a cookie at a charity bake sale. My policy on that is a) I do it after I've already donated and b) I count it out of my cookie budget, rather than my donation budget. But it's only worth doing if I actually want the cookie, because it's not the most effective way of making a donation. I personally can't imagine wanting one of those shirts, but if you like them as much as I like cookies I suppose this is as good a way of buying one as any.

Agreed, though, that '100% of proceeds' could mean anything at all.

I'm not that knowledgeble of tax laws governing charitable contributions, but it seems to me that if someone donates $100 dollars to the United Way directly, the entire amount is tax deductable. But if one buys a polo shirt for $100, none of the cost of the shirt is tax deductable to the purchaser of the shirt, even if Ralph Lauren Company makes a $100 contribution to the United Way as a result of the purchase. (This is just a guess on my part).

I know that a lot of crafty people on websites like Etsy make items to sell in which all or most of the proceeds go to whatever relief fund is relevant at the time. I understand why they do this; it is because they personally don't have the extra cash to donate - yet if they make something from their supplies on hand and someone had been pining for it anyway, they can generate cash to donate.

I don't quite understand the big companies doing things - like this specific design - its wearability is limited. I mean I can't imagine who will be wearing this shirt 6 months from now, much less a year or two. (Maybe I'm wrong, because I don't 'get' Ralph Lauren style anyway, or the people who spend that much on polo shirts.) Why not just make 1 day where every polo shirt sold at an actual RL store will, in part, benefit the relief efforts? Why force people to buy something that they don't really plan to wear long-term? That's like saying we'll donate the proceeds of all movie tickets bought this weekend, but you have to sit quietly and actually watch (without a bathroom break) a triple feature of terrible movies like "Because I Said So", "Event Horizon" and whatever your least favorite movie ever was. Sure, some people would actually go and do it, because they want to get something in exchange for their donation, but it severely limits the amount of participants.

What would probably be more effective would be having a special day or week or something where proceeds from everything in the store goes to the relief efforts.

Tumblr is selling a shirt too now, it's the japanese tumblr logo I'm pretty sure, and proceeds go to international red cross

http://www.bustedtees.com/tumblrjapan

It comes up advertised on everyones tumblr because everyone has to follow the staff

How about, "I made a donation and I got a shirt. What the F*** did you do?" Way to much cerebralness in these posts. Stop judging other people, people!