Oprah Fights AIDS, Genocide, Poverty with Fashion

Leave it to Oprah to come up with a fashionable campaign to help African women in need. The O bracelet project, sponsored in partnership between O, the Oprah magazine, Fair Winds Trading and Macy’s, empowers women of Rwanda by providing jobs. The bracelets are handmade in Rwanda by women who are affected by poverty, AIDS and genocide. 100% of sales go directly to the women.

What a fabulous idea to give women the creative outlet to hand make bracelets for a source of income. Since its launch in January 2007, the project has made a huge impact in women’s lives. Here’s a excerpt from Mary Fisher’s website (the bracelet designer):

Sadie is 26 years old and has one child. In 2003, she was sick so went back to her village to ask for help from her grandfather and other relatives. She says she was shunned and relatives got a shovel and put it next to her bed, to use to dig her grave. They wanted her to write down what her belongings were in Lusaka so when she died they could get them (a pretty typical occurrence, because women have no property rights according to tribal traditions). The relatives would not feed her in the village so she got sicker and sicker. She got some money for transport, sneaked out of the village and got back to Lusaka to her sisters, who go her to the clinic where she received antiretroviral (ARV) medication.

Getting paid for her work on the bracelet project means she can buy the balanced food she's supposed to eat while taking ARV medication. She also puts money in the bank for school fees for her daughter, who is 6 now. They have to pay school fees every month and if they don't have enough for that month, her daughter doesn't go to school that month.

The bracelet is sold online at Macys.com. Prices range from $88 to $330. What a great movement to provide income for those in Africa!

* Photo from MaryFisher.com

Fashion Magazines: A Grand PR Outlet

As a student majoring in magazine editorial, I naturally delve through a fair share of magazines on a weekly basis. And I admit, I am a sucker for fashion magazines. Although most magazines are “alive” for the sole purpose of making money, I find fashion magazines to be in a world of their own. Even editorial content seems purely driven by advertising and public relations. New products and new clothes are the main focuses of editorial, no doubt conjured up from company press releases.

Is this OK? Surely from a PR standpoint magazines serve as a key median for companies. Flipping through two of my favorites, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, I notice that ad content versus editorial content is about 80 percent to 20 percent, far higher than the average 60 percent to 40 percent. As a reader, I don’t mind this skewed ratio. Half the fun is looking at the advertising; I imagine most readers would agree with me.

Whether or not a company is in the fashion industry, targeting consumer and trade magazines for products or company news can be a worthwhile endeavor. Fashion magazines certainly take no shame.

Lazy PR

Chris Anderson's latest blog, "Sorry PR people: you're blocked," was needed. It was blunt and a tad harsh, but is a great wake-up call for all PR professionals. It can be easy to e-mail a press release to the first address one sees, but as Chris "lightly" puts, "Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can't be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they're pitching." Long story short? Take a moment and send to the right person.

As a PR professional in training, I learned at my summer internship to ALWAYS look up the targeted person for the media advisory and/or news release. If all else fails, pick up the phone and ask. At the time, it never occurred to me that if I sent to the wrong person I may be blocked, and/or humiliated on a blog, but now I'll be even more careful.

Having said all this, it is true that many professionals buy media lists to send their news to. I would suggest looking over any purchased list carefully before putting it to use. Or, have an intern work on researching and compiling a general list. That's what interns are there for, right? Well, that and coffee runs.