Pretty in Pink: The Susan G. Komen Network and the Branding of the Breast Cancer Cause

The pink ribbon is a ubiquitous fixture on the consumer landscape of contemporary America. Emerging over the last two decades as the symbol for the fight being waged against breast cancer, the color and image now adorn packaging for everything from trash bags to cosmetics, cereal to cleaning products, postage stamps to guacamole. The already pink Energizer bunny now dons a pink ribbon as he keeps going and going to fight breast cancer as well as power the nation‘s electronic devices. The National Football League donned pink during October 2009 in support of October‘s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Muslim women veiled themselves in pink hijabs for the annual Global Pink Hijab Day at the end of October. 1 Aging baby boomers, those most at risk from the disease can now write with, drink out of, sleep under, read with, and indulge their inner chocoholics with products designed to remind them of that threat. This blitzkrieg of cause marketing, spearheaded by the Susan G. Komen Network and its army of corporate sponsors is admittedly taking the fight to this dread disease. The plethora of pink ribbons to be found in virtually every shopping venue represents a marketing bonanza for those corporations savvy enough or committed enough to jump on board the Komen bandwagon. The millions of dollars that have been raised to fight breast cancer are unquestionable evidence of an ardent desire to eradicate this disease. The invasion of the pink ribbon into the visual lexicon of virtually every American adult has raised awareness of the disease, a vital step in the detection and treatment of most cancers. Despite all this apparent good however, manifested in dollars for research an