Buy, give and let live

What's the story with ethical shopping?Giving has never been so easy, and if you choose carefully next time you go shopping for breakfast cereals, nappies or washing-up liquid, to name just three items, substantial charitable donations to worthy causes will be made on your behalf in the run-up to Christmas.

There was a time when the tokens clipped from the side of a cornflakes box could only be exchanged for a leather football or an inevitably disappointing superhero costume, but not any more - tokens from Kellogg's Corn Flakes can currently be swapped for trees to be planted in the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Give the Gift of Trees campaign currently being run by Kellogg's Ireland and Bóthar - the charity that specialises in livestock-based development programmes - aims to plant 150,000 trees in disadvantaged communities in Tanzania, Malawi, Rwanda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso and Uganda to help develop sustainable farming practices.

Four tokens, found on special boxes, plus €5 will provide 10 saplings for the farmers, and for every 10 donations made, Kellogg's will fund a further 10 trees. As of the middle of last week, 7,620 donations had been made, so there is a long way to go before the magic 150,000 is reached.

Meanwhile, Pampers and Unicef Ireland have, for the second year, launched a joint campaign to provide one million tetanus vaccinations to vulnerable mothers and their new babies in the developing world.

Every year, maternal and neonatal tetanus kills more than 250,000 mothers and babies, with a baby dying from the disease every three minutes. For each special Unicef pack of Pampers sold in Ireland, the company will provide Unicef Ireland with the funding for one tetanus vaccine. Last year Pampers provided Unicef Ireland with funds for 727,623 tetanus vaccinations, and the combined figures from the Irish and UK markets was 7.4 million vaccinations.

BOTH INITIATIVES ARE part of a global trend that has seen big corporations line up alongside charities. Last month the Co-operative Bank in Britain launched a credit card that rewards its customers for ethical shopping. The card offers a lower rate of interest on purchases made from designated ethical partners, including cosmetics group Lush and the fair-trade company Traidcraft.

The bank also arranges for half an acre of Brazilian rainforest to be bought and protected in the name of the cardholder the first time the card is used. "According to our own Ethical Consumerism Report, conscious spending has been increasing at an average of 15 per cent a year since the start of the decade and all the signs are that this growth is set to continue," David Anderson, chief executive of the Co-operative Bank said.

It is not the first time a credit card with a conscience has come on the market. The business of ethics made headlines worldwide two years ago when Bono announced the establishment of Red, a global business initiative to channel funds from the sale of branded products into the fight against Aids, TB and malaria in Africa. Among the businesses backing the venture was American Express, with Gap, Armani and Converse also lining up to do good.

And doing good is big business. The fair-trade movement in Ireland is estimated to be worth more than €10 million annually and the total spend on fair-trade products is heading towards €1 billion across Europe. In Britain, spending on personal products such as humane cosmetics and eco-fashion was about £1.3 billion (€1.8 billion) last year.

"Ethical consumerism is a powerful force for environmental and social change," according to Rob Harrison, Ethical Consumer Research Association. He says that by buying products from companies at the forefront of responsible corporate behaviour, "you can not only lend your support to ethically progressive companies, but also put pressure on those that are lagging behind".

Bubbling just under the surface of many advertising briefs now is the idea that consumers want products that make statements about their lifestyles. This has prompted smart brands to align themselves with some notion of ethical consumption, and companies are falling over themselves to give people an incentive to buy that transcends price and quality.

Many consumers are happy to pay a premium for a product if it means producers get fair labour prices and the environment is conserved.

According to one advertising executive who spoke to PriceWatchlast week, the popularity of fair-trade products "and the fact that they offer an instant badge of social conscience for both the brand and consumer" has not gone unnoticed by traditional marketeers. "Brands are now preaching their philosophies and hope to win customer loyalty by demonstrating the positive values of the brand."

THIS IS GIVING rise to what are called citizen brands - the phenomenon whereby people feel a connection to a brand beyond the fulfilment of a consumer need. "This is nirvana for marketing people, as consumers become champions of brands, advocates of the philosophy, and they buy the product as a lifestyle choice, to make a statement to others."

A new kid on the giving block is Freerice.com, an online initiative by the World Food Programme. It features a pleasingly difficult word game in which a word appears alongside four possible definitions. Each time you answer a question, the website donates the cost of 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme.

It was launched on October 7th and on day one 830 grains of rice were donated. After one month that number has climbed to one billion, as its appearance on thousands of blogs and Facebook profiles turns it into a viral marketing phenomenon.

Brands including American Express, Apple, Time Warner and Toshiba have been queuing up to advertise on the site, as hundreds of thousands of people have been lining up to play on it.

Be careful however, it is strangely addictive.