Hiding politics in plain sight: cause marketing, corporate influence, and breast cancer policymaking

Abstract

Faced with a stigmatized disease shrouded in silence, in the 1980s and 1990s breast cancer activists with business backgrounds partnered with corporations to sponsor runs and cause-marketing products, a portion of the proceeds of which benefit breast cancer. Branding breast cancer as 'pink' - hopeful, positive, uncontroversial - on the products Americans see every day, they generated a pervasive understanding of breast cancer that is widely shared by the public and embraced by policymakers. Clearly, they have been successful: today, more Americans know the pink ribbon is the symbol of breast cancer than know the name of the US vice president. But it is not clear at what cost. 'Hiding Politics' examines the costs of employing market mechanisms - especially cause marketing - as a strategy for change.