Day 24: Insulated cups

I'm not going to lie, I love Tervis Tumblers.  No condensation, they can advertise your favorite team/animal/cause, the name of the product is alliterative.  What's not to love?  So, who could possibly be surprised when Tervis Tumblers jumped in to the equally popular pink ribbon game? 

 The campaign, called "You Buy Pink We Give Green", purports to give 5% of their sales to "finding a cure for breast cancer".  No organization indicated and no minimum or maximum donation.  Wow, Komen and/or Breast Cancer Research Foundation, you need to get on top of Tervis!

So, of course, I contacted Tervis to get the story.  I LOVE online chat windows with customer service.  "Jeni" was less than helpful.

Since I'm still holding my breath to hear back from a few other companies, I'll just add Tervis to the list.

Around the corner on the other side of Bed, Bath and Beyond was another hotbed of breast cancer supporting insulated cups.

One that looks like a to-go coffee cup and the other that looks like a to-go plastic cup, these "Copco" products state (on a big pink ribbon tag) that a portion of the proceeds go to support the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Since a there was no amount stated, I decided to give Copco a call.  The operator transferred me to Denise in Customer Service.  I explained what I was looking for to Denise and  she had absolutely no knowledge of any product that had a pink ribbon or was involved in supporting breast cancer at all.  She offered to transfer me to someone who could help which promptly sent me to the operator.  I explained (again) what I was looking for and...well, you guessed it, she transferred me back to Denise.  HELLO again Denise, I'm sure you had hoped I got bored and moved on by now!

I was persistent until Denise offered to contact the product manager and get back with me.  I'm perplexed about why someone in customer service would have no familiarity with this program, but, I do give Denise credit for calling me back.  Allegedly, 5% of the net profits goes to the BCRF.

So, again, if you think about a cup that costs $4.99, let's just pretend that the company is making 50% profit.  So, $2.50 in this case.  For each cup, the company alleges to donate $.12.  Is it really worth saturating an entire month with pink ribbons for this pittance?  Not to mention that by November 1st, these are all going to be on clearance so I bet that cost reduction is going to cut in to the net proceeds on this product, anyway.  It's not like they are going to keep pink ribbon stuff on the shelf...as it is I'm sure they are itching to put the Christmas stuff out, anyway.

At least with Christmas, they don't have to pretend to be helping a cause.