TOMS Shoes: Good Marketing – Bad Aid
Posted on October 25, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Despite all that I’ve written about the problems caused by donating goods overseas, the most frequent question I get from readers is what do I think about TOMS Shoes. I don’t know whether they’re uncertain because TOMS uses the Buy One Give One (BOGO) model instead donating used goods, or if it’s because TOMS has gotten such good PR for their program.
To answer everyone’s question, here’s how I feel. TOMS Shoes is a good marketing tool, but it’s not good aid. Here’s why:
- It’s quintessential Whites in Shining Armor.
- It’s doing things “for” people not “with” people.
- They allow people to pay to travel with the distribution trips as shoe fitters thereby promoting poverty tourism.
- They promote the “awareness raising” activity – One Day Without Shoes – which is really just a marketing ploy. I’ve launched a counter-campaign this year, A Day Without Dignity.
- They ship in goods for free that outcompete local goods, it’s a short-term solution that could create long-term problems.
- I challenge anyone to find a single country in the world where there are not shoes for sale in the marketplace. There are many better and cheaper ways to get shoes on the feet of the poor.
Unfortunately the launch of a copycat program by Sketchers called BOBS Shoes has set off a flurry of posts criticizing BOBS for their bad form in copying TOMS while praising TOMS. Now I have to admit TOMS has done a great job at marketing, they’re quite well known. But good marketing does not guarantee good aid.
It’s extremely frustrating to see so many organizations that advise donors or promote corporate social responsibility sing the praises of TOMS Shoes as though the strength of the marketing campaign is the only thing that’s important. It gives me very little hope that things will improve any time soon. Before anyone asks, the same criticism goes for all of these other shoe programs:
- BOBS
- Soles4Souls – Slate recently reported the CEO makes $500,000/ year
- Flipflops for Families
- 50,000 shoes – Project Haiti
If there were more BOGO programs where the shoes were actually made locally – creating local jobs – I’d be much more willing to get behind the program.
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Update April 10, 2012: Anyone interested in this topic might want to click on the following two links.
TOMS Shoes: A closer look – a podcast by Tiny Spark investigates the history of TOMS and some of the controversy surrounding TOMS.
One for One? – a blog post by a missionary in Haiti that encounters donated TOMS shoes for sale on the open market in Haiti.
Update: Here is the video for A Day Without Dignity, a counter-campaign to TOMS’ One Day Without Shoes. There were more than 60 posts written in support of A Day Without Dignity, read all of them here.
Update: One of TOMS “local partners” is World Vision, which itself has been the focus of criticism from this blog and others for their use of gifts-in-kind. While this helps World Vision lower their overhead ratio, World Vision has not proven either the need or the impact of the gift-in-kind programs.
Update: I have had so many people write to either ask me where they should buy shoes or to tell me of a socially conscience shoe manufacturer that I’ve created a post to track the suggestions, Socially conscience shoes.
Update: It appears TOMS produces shoes in Ethiopia and China. See the comments below for more information on that. If you own a pair of TOMS, look to see which country they were made in.
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Guides by Good Intentions are Not Enough
Good Intentions’ Guide to Holiday Charitable Giving
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Other Posts on TOMS Shoes:
Shoes for Business: The unintended consequences of doing good – The Harvard Crimson
New blog post! Free of charge! – truths about elephants
A spectrum of social entrepreneurship: TOMS, Indego, and Henry Ford – Short Sentences
TOMS Shoes vs. Whole Foods – smorgasblurb
A tryst with TOMS – Aid Watch
Do You Cause More Harm than Good by Giving TOMS Shoes to the Poor? – Zacstravaganza!
TOMS Shoes: out-competing local entrepreneurs since 2006 – Short Sentences
Toms Shoes not the right fit - The Point Weekly
Blog posts specifically about shoe donations
Enough with the shoes donations - Good Intentions are Not Enough
What IS it with the SHOES? – Tales from the Hood
Donating shoes and other aid fads - Good Intentions are Not Enough
Nobody wants your old shoes: How not to help in Haiti - AidWatch guest post by Alanna Shaikh
We’re shocked to discover Jessica Simpson doesn’t read our blog - AidWatch on the 50,000 shoe project
Three bad ideas for helping Haiti – Blood and Milk
Blog posts about in-kind donations in general
The problem with giving free food to hungry people – Good Intentions are Not Enough
6 questions you should ask before donating goods overseas – Good Intentions are Not Enough
The worst in-kind donations – Good Intentions are Not Enough
Good donorship and some early lessons learned from the earthquake response in Haiti – guest post on Good Intentions are not enough
Haiti: Help with money, not stuff – Global Post
Guidelines for appropriate International Disaster Donations – Center of International Disaster Information (CIDI)
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[...] we fall into in an article entitled “When is it a bad idea to give the poor free stuff?”. This criticism of TOMS Shoes also describes the problem of free stuff outcompeting local goods, but goes further, pointing out [...]
[...] In any case, I did find that TOMS does donate shoes in Argentina, Honduras and Ethiopia among a few other places….I mean, it’s the least they can do right? Do they equal the numbers of shoes sold? We may never know although i’d like to go out on a limb and say fizzity-fuck NO! The amount of people at any given time buying TOMS (esp. if you take into account the Holiday season) would have to be equalled in man-power for distributing those donated shoes. So lets say 1M TOMS were sold on Black Friday…how many people are needed to donate 1M shoes? Then another 2M are sold in the coming weeks leading up to Xmas. Where’s all that man-power going to come from? These are just logistical questions. What happens when you get into ethics and local vs. import economics and commerce? (For those issues, check out this rather informative site: http://goodintents.org/in-kind-donations/toms-shoes) [...]
[...] Improvement: First, though fabulously intended, I’m in the choir of skeptics about the impact of distributing free shoes to poor kids. In short, giving away [...]
[...] lives. So much of the world lives in constant poverty. A simple donation will not solve anything. Disrupting local economies will do more harm than good in the long run. So what can be [...]
[...] TOMS Shoes: Good Marketing, Bad Aid [...]
[...] I’ve actually been meaning to write something about misguided charitable giving recently, but I’m afraid that anyone with a pair of TOMS will want to hunt me down and punch me in the face. Spoiler: TOMS is bad aid. [...]
[...] criticisms of TOMS. In 2010, GoodIntents.org posted a succinct point-form criticism called “TOMS Shoes: Good Marketing – Bad Aid.” In a similar vein, Kelsey Timmerman of Where Am I Wearing? points out that TOMS products are made [...]
[...] model kind of sucks. Actually, from a development perspective, it pretty much blows. As usual I’ll leave it to Saundra to explain why because she does it so [...]
[...] development see TOMS as a hindrance to development rather than the solution. Blogs such as “Good Intentions are not Enough” have argued that the TOMS One for One model unfairly outcompetes local businesses causing [...]
[...] and how they foster poverty tourism and outcompete local goods. A great article starting point is here, at goodintents. Now, that doesn’t mean that I will stop wearing the Toms I currently have. I [...]
[...] upon aid workers and people from areas that receive shoe drops and aid to speak up against TOMS’ “Whites in Shining Armor” approach to philanthropy.More than 60 blog posts were contributed to the campaign, including one [...]
[...] The problem is giving shoes away doesn’t necessarily solve too many problems. Sure, kids need shoes. But is donating millions of shoes truly the way to help the children of the world? Some have pointed to the age old Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Some have suggested an alternate model. Instead of donating shoes that TOMS produces they could pay local shoemakers and donate locally made shoes. Others have gone as far to say that it’s just bad aid. [...]
[...] The problem is giving shoes away doesn’t necessarily solve too many problems. Sure, kids need shoes. But is donating millions of shoes truly the way to help the children of the world? Some have pointed to the age old Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” They have suggested an alternate model. Instead of donating shoes that TOMS produces they could pay local shoemakers and donate locally made shoes. Others have gone as far to say that it’s just bad aid. [...]
[...] upon aid workers and people from areas that receive shoe drops and aid to speak up against TOMS’ “Whites in Shining Armor”approach to [...]
[...] – and other stakeholders – should be consulted about the content of the programs, goods, & services offered as well as the advocacy materials. given how research and programs are [...]
[...] Buy-one-give-one businesses like TOMS sell a “philantrophic brand” disguised as bad aid: they do nothing to address the problem at hand and are manufactured abroad, thus disrupting market opportunities for local suppliers. [...]
[...] TOMS Shoes: Good Marketing – Bad Aid | Good Intentions Are Not Enough. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. April 3, 2012 conhippy Categories: Uncategorized [...]
[...] At the Good Intentions blog, Saundra Schimmelpfennig writes why TOMS Shoes is a good marketing tool, but it’s not good aid. [...]
[...] not a fan of TOMS shoes, their One Day Without Shoes event or their shoe drops. I even helped start A Day Without Dignity [...]
[...] years over the Buy One, Give One (BOGO) model, or, “One for One,” in TOMS language. A long list of critics argue that BOGO is not sustainable and that most donations in the developing world inevitably cause [...]