TAMPA, FL -- Pink is a powerful color these days. The pink ribbon is the symbol of breast cancer awareness, the struggle and fight for a cure.
"It is a good thing to increase the awareness of what one can do," says Andy Kramer with the American Cancer Society.
But Kramer says that pink ribbon is also a persuasive marketing tool. "You see them everywhere on cars on products in the grocery store." There are questions people have to ask themselves as smart, sharp consumers, Kramer says.
We shopped aisle by aisle and found pink ribbons on everything from sporting goods to cereal. In a matter of minutes, she filled up an entire shopping cart with pink. But if we bought everything in the cart, how much money would we actually be donating? Sometimes it’s unclear.
Here are some items Kramer says you should look out for before making a "pink" purchase:
1. What portion of my purchase is going toward the organization?Companies like Dyson say right on the box right on the box of one of their vacuum cleaners that $30 dollars of the purchase will go toward the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
2. Which organization will benefit from the donation?One Revlon blow dryer shows a “portion” of your purchase will go towards breast cancer, but it does not indicate which organization will benefit.
"It's not enough to say it's going to benefit breast cancer research or breast cancer prevention, it needs to say the organization that's behind it," Kramer says.
3. Read the fine print to see if there is a cap in donations the manufacturer gives. "The purchases may go way beyond that but they cap it at a certain amount" Kramer warns.
For example, mo matter how many pink ribbon Brita’s they sell, the company is donating $50 thousand dollars this year to "breast cancer treatment and education."
4. Check if any extra steps are required before your donation to count.Some pink purchases require you to take an additional step before your donation counts. "Many companies may require you to go to their website fill out a survey make another purchase," Kramer says.
For example: Yoplait says they're going to donate over a million dollars on some of their yogurt products. But, a donation is not automatically made after your purchase. You actually have to mail in the lid and then ten cents will go to the cause.
