Ads Feed Controversy Over Africa Famine Aid
It is provocative advertising by any standard:
“Why ComputerLand Decided Not to Send Money to Ethiopia. . . . “
“Hunger. Disease. Death. And Some Other Topics to Bring Up at Your Next Board Meeting. . . .”
“If America’s Rock Musicians Can Raise 45 Million Dollars in Three Months, What Could the Fortune 500 Do? . . . “
This new, million-dollar ad campaign from ComputerLand, which seeks to enroll corporate America in providing the long-term solutions to world hunger, is attracting both applause and criticism from agencies in the famine relief industry.
Businesses Want to Know
And the series of full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal is drawing scores of requests (about 350 thus far) from business people asking ComputerLand for information on what they and their companies can do to help.
But some business people, specifically some franchisees of the world’s largest computer store franchiser, aren’t convinced of the economic merits of the firm’s bold new campaign. While some ComputerLand store owners are praising the corporate office’s pioneering approach to doing business, others are openly critical of the fighting-hunger-is-good-for-profits strategy and doubt that the ads will send many customers their way.
Back at ComputerLand’s Hayward, Calif., headquarters, though, the troops remain enthusiastic. They report that in addition to the running the ads, the company has set up a special department to fill information requests and to begin networking givers and receivers.
But the advertisements have also sparked a backlash, particularly the first ad with its attention-grabbing headline, “Why ComputerLand Decided Not to Send Money to Ethiopia.”
Later, in smaller type, the May 28 ad went on to explain that immediate relief efforts “will not supply the long-term solutions to the causes of hunger. . . . It is time for the brightest, most powerful minds in corporate America to develop the long-range programs that can eliminate world hunger permanently. . . . “
“If you don’t spend any money on the immediate problem, you’re not going to have a long term. The people will all be dead,” countered Myra Lebo, deputy director of the USA for Africa Foundation, the relief organization that features 45 U.S. pop stars. “I don’t understand what the ads are saying. I’m sure they do have a point, whatever it is. All of us who work in famine relief are working toward the same goals.”
Similar confusion has been expressed among a number of hunger agency leaders and workers, according to Brenda Eddy, president of the Los Angeles-based End Hunger Network, a coalition of 115 hunger organizations.
Eddy, who describes the ComputerLand ad series as “basically great,” feels the controversial aspects of the campaign may have been inadvertent.
The first of the criticisms she has heard fall into the category of what is known, among long-term hunger workers, as the “the Great White Bwana Syndrome.”
‘Powerful People’
“The ads imply, and at some levels they come out and say it, that American business is going to swoop down and solve the problem, as if the Africans are so lazy and so incompetent that they can’t fight their way out of a paper bag,” Eddy said. “The ads are written in the voice of one businessman to others in the Wall Street Journal and they play on the fact that American businessmen are powerful people in the world. In that context it sounds fine, but it sounds condescending in another context.”
The second issue that Eddy found hunger professionals concerned about was the headline of the first ad about not sending money to Ethiopia.
“People in the PVOs (private, voluntary organizations) are concerned that people will only read the headline,” Eddy said, “and that people will think that American business or a particular company doesn’t want to help.”
In fact, she added, many hunger organizations not only applaud those who want to work on the long-term solutions, they spend large chunks of their own budgets for that purpose.
Eddy insisted that many career hunger workers are delighted that an American corporation would allocate all of a year’s annual corporate advertising budget for the purpose of informing people about the need for continued involvement in the long-term fight against starvation.
“This is a good guy (ComputerLand chairman Bill Millard) who is making a real contribution,” she said. “They (the hunger professionals) only wished he’d read the ads to somebody first and gotten a little more sensitive and sophisticated about the subject.”
Reluctant to Criticize
Some hunger agency leaders interviewed, however, asked that their names not be used because they did not wish to appear critical of anyone making any effort at eradicating world hunger. Their comments largely concerned how much food the million dollars scheduled to be spent on ComputerLand advertising might have bought and whether business people should attempt to make a profit on hunger.
(The advertisements made a case that helping feed starving people “is not bad for a company’s image” and that ending hunger “will create immense new markets for a wide spectrum of goods and services currently unsalable in . . . devastated areas.” The ads further argued that “large, vigorous and low-cost work forces will emerge virtually everywhere” and that “the currently weak global financial system will be stabilized and strengthened as long-term debts are repaid.”)
The remarks on this issue from the director of a prominent hunger organization on the East Coast were not unusual: “I personally don’t have any problem with the advertising. I’m more concerned that we sensitize people to the issue of hunger. But some people are skeptical of the motives of somebody jumping on the hunger wagon for the profit motive. I don’t want to throw a wet towel on it, but you can’t help but have some concern when a company says we’re going to go out and make a profit on hunger.”
A Greater Contribution
Barbara J. Millard, ComputerLand’s president and chief operating officer and the 27-year-old daughter of chairman Bill Millard, pointed out, however, that by using the hunger issue in its advertising, the firm is able to make a greater contribution to the hunger problem than it did previously.
Millard noted that her family has been involved in the world hunger issue for a number of years, donating time, personal funds and ComputerLand funds to agencies such as the Hunger Project, a San Francisco-based spinoff of Werner Erhard’s est organization.
Millard explained that the company’s decision to allocate its advertising budget for work on behalf of ending hunger allowed the firm to simultaneously increase “public awareness of and customer preference for ComputerLand” and to make a substantially larger contribution to the hunger cause.
“The purpose of the ads is to raise levels of awareness and generate corporate support, the commitment of corporations to look within their organizations to see what they can do on this issue,” she continued. “We’ve gotten a lot of responses already saying ‘We’d like to help. What can we do?’ or ‘Here’s what we do. Who needs it?’ We’re working to put these people in touch with people who need their services or skills or products.” Millard also emphasized that the advertisements are only one part of the program. In addition, a mass mailing of related literature will be sent to the chief executive officers of the Fortune 2000. And franchise owners are being encouraged to participate with local programs.
Asked if there had been any negative responses, Millard replied “very few. . . . It’s been in the area that people aren’t sure if it’s OK to take a new look at a world problem and take a profitable point of view about it.
“This is a new idea. It’s the same idea that Peter Ueberroth had in making the Olympics very profitable. He faced the same reaction. We believe that the advertisements we placed were not only effective as we’ve seen with the deluge of responses, they’ve also made people and business people more aware of ComputerLand and what kind of company we are.”
Millard went on to say that she was pleased with the campaign’s results thus far and had no regrets about the manner in which the information was presented.
She added, however, “I would be lying to say that I was happy that those people who’ve worked so long and hard on the issue, that some of them are offended by it. . . . We stepped out there to see what the results would be. As we do it, we’ll be figuring out what we’ll do next. We’ll fine-tune with input from different sources.”
Feedback Is Mixed
Feedback from some of ComputerLand’s 820 franchisees has been decidedly mixed and may have been influenced by the present downturn in the computer market and a recent legal decision against the privately held parent company. Earlier this year, Bill Millard and the firm lost a lawsuit over an old debt and face payment of $125 million. The case is being appealed.
“I’ve not talked to one franchise owner who’s been positive about it (the hunger campaign),” said Drew Clauson, owner of six Southern California ComputerLand franchises. “I’ve talked to six or seven franchise owners with about 25 stores and they all think we’re not a big enough company to attack that problem. We’re not McDonald’s or General Motors. We’re ComputerLand, a very competitive business in today’s market. It isn’t going to help sell computers.”
But there were people like Bruce Burdick who had already started doing something about hunger.
“This is part of a corporate responsibility campaign which I am very much for,” said Burdick, who owns 11 franchises in Kansas and Missouri. “My wife is already seeking out people here to work on the hunger program. We’ve found out there really isn’t a shortage of food. We need to get management teams to help distribute the food.”
Burdick’s not only excited about what ComputerLand’s done so far, he’s hoping the company will extend the program considerably. “I just don’t want them to stop there,” he said. “That’s a good starting place. There’s a whole lot more we can do once we get rolling.”
