NU TOMcats’ participation in One Day Without Shoes has inspired me to start a new student organization. It’s called NU Wal-MartCats. We will buy stuff at Wal-Mart because a portion of the money we help Wal-Mart accrue will go toward the company’s substantial corporate giving, some of which helps impoverished children. Additionally, one day a year, we will raise awareness by hosting an event: One Day Without Stuff. We will fast all day and parade around the campus in various states of undress to show our solidarity with poor kids who can’t have stuff on a regular basis. We will do so whilst prominently displaying the Wal-Mart logo.
What’s that you say? My idea is preposterous? Wal-Mart is an evil corporation that pays its workers slave wages to peddle its made-in-China crap in strategically selected depressed areas to turn a sky-high profit? Yeah, whatever. Wal-Mart still funnels a substantially larger amount of cash and products into charity than TOMS Shoes does, and I’ve modeled my new organization after the campus clubs (ours being NU TOMcats) the corporation encourages. The only difference, really, is that Wal-Mart won’t facilitate my attempt to bolster the brand the way TOMS does.
TOMS, founded in 2006 by “Chief Shoe Giver” Blake Mycoskie, sells boat shoes for upwards of $45 a pair on the premise that the company will match each shoe purchase with a donation of a pair of TOMS shoes to a child in need. TOMS describes itself as “a for-profit company with giving at its core.” To put this in cynical columnist terms, the giving is their gimmick. It’s what gets people to buy the shoes. If TOMS didn’t donate any shoes, the company would stand to make much more money, but no one would buy the shoes in the first place.
I am in no way against companies making money. And believe me, I’m also in no way against absurdly marked-up shoes. I’m not even against TOMS using its giving strategy as its main marketing apparatus. That’s pretty dang smart. My misgivings lie in the fact that we seem unable to see through this strategy the way we can when we see Wal-Mart commercials about its charity initiatives. We mistakenly equate buying TOMS shoes with eradicating poverty.
TOMS encourages college students to raise awareness of the need for children’s shoes in underdeveloped countries by starting “campus clubs.” The students essentially act as unpaid marketing representatives for the company. TOMS sends a newsletter to its clubs with ideas for fundraising events. Many involve buying TOMS, while all involve promoting the brand. In other words, these clubs, while doing admirable work to help children, provide a shoe company with a powerful, virtually free advertising force as well as a continual source of revenue. I’ve seen more opaque scams advertised in the backs of children’s comic books.
On April 5, TOMS held its fourth annual One Day Without Shoes. This year, the company promoted the event with a touching YouTube video that combined facts about the need for shoes in developing nations with shots of throngs jubilantly walking barefoot and prominently displaying the Toms logo. It also featured celebrity endorsement videos. NU TOMcats participated in the event, as did many other TOMS-affiliated groups throughout the country.
I spoke to the president of NU TOMcats, and I think the students involved are genuinely concerned about the dangers children face when they cannot afford a pair of shoes, but are limited by their connection to TOMS. I don’t have any moral objections to the brand, but I also did not feel compelled to participate in their tremendous marketing stunt, which is essentially what One Day Without Shoes is. I also don’t feel compelled to buy a pair of TOMS. I could spend that money on a micro loan to a start-up in the impoverished nation I want to help, then use what I get back with interest on several sexy pairs of boat shoes. Maybe from Wal-Mart.
Ali Elkin is a Medill junior. She can be reached at [email protected]. Illustration by Sophie Jenkins.
