Seeing Red

Huh? Exactly.

Say hi to Product Red, a marketing campaign aimed at raising money to fight AIDS in Africa. In the U.K., Amex is issuing Red Cards in support of the campaign. One per cent of all purchases is paid over to the AIDS effort. IPODs, cell phones, clothing - you can get them all in Product Red versions.

It's all part of an encouraging rise in ethical marketing. Given the choice, people seem to be prepared to pay full price, perhaps even a little more, for a product directly linked to a cause they endorse.

Now we have "ethical clothing", apparel that isn't from sweat shops. In today's Christian Science Monitor there's a terrific story about how focussing on ethical manufacturing breathed new life into a failing textiles industry in proverty-riddled Lesotho, South Africa. Big names like Old Navy and GAP are moving to market lines of ethical clothing.

Lesotho's textile industry had virtually collapsed. Even a depressed zone such as this couldn't compete with Chinese manufacturers. Moving to ethical clothing put them back on their feet:

"Gap or Levi's - or any of the myriad brands that source here - can promise customers that T-shirts and jeans made in Lesotho were not produced by sweatshop labor, and that working conditions met high safety standards.

"And in these days of socially conscious consumers, this sort of promise sells.

"'The ethical image has value," says Christian Kemp-Griffin, CEO of Edun Apparel Ltd, a self-described "socially conscious clothing company" with a factory in Lesotho that was started last year by Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson. "A company doesn't have to sacrifice its margins to sell its product because it's doing it ethically. It actually adds value for the consumer."

"The rebirth of Lesotho's textile business spread a sigh of relief throughout this country of 1.9 million, where there is almost no other industry besides textiles and hundreds of thousands of people depend on factory workers' incomes.

"Analysts from around the world predicted the demise of textile industries in countries such as Lesotho since brands could make all of their clothes in cheaper, more productive Chinese factories. And true to those predictions, in 2005, a number of brands closed or reduced their operations in Lesotho. Textile employment dipped to around 40,000. That's when Anna Tsoeu lost her job.

"But at the same time, an alliance of companies, NGOs, government representatives, and others were trying to find ways to protect the country's industry. Already, some brands had improved working conditions in Lesotho to answer concerns about sweatshop labor. The group realized that if Lesotho could start aggressively marketing itself as an ethical source of clothing, it could retain and even grow business.

"Ethical trading gives you a competitive edge," says Andy Selm, regional textile and apparel specialist at ComMark Trust. "You can attract a better quality of customer."

See, things definitely can turn around - if that's what we want.