The Pink Ribbon Wins The Blue Ribbon!

by Lydia Daffenberg

Any ad campaign worth anything has a unique gimmick to get people's attention and money. Organizations go out of their way to think up something original for their trademark--something that will set them apart from other organizations. That's why, when it comes to ribbon campaigns, I don't get it.

There are so many ribbon campaigns out there, it's hard to remember what the different colors stand for. I've seen yellow, pink, red, blue, green, white and patriotic color-themed ribbons. The only one I have down for sure is that pink is for breast cancer. I believe red is for AIDS, and the patriotic color-themed ones are remnants of the Patriot-Pandemic that swept America in the 9/11 aftermath. I'm not sure about yellow--if it's officially only for Support Our Troops--I've seen it with other slogans too. And I have no idea what blue, green or white stand for.

As a kid growing up in the late 70's, I saw yellow ribbons tied around the trunks of trees and instantly thought of the song Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree. I tried to remember the rest of the song so I could figure out the mystery of why. I think the yellow ribbons were for hostage troops, or in memory of lost troops, in some middle-east skirmish--or something. I dunno, I was a kid young enough to only be concerned with myself. I remember some of the ribbons I saw being very weathered and ratty looking, and I didn't understand why people wouldn't take them down or replace them.

When it comes to wearable ribbon campaigns, however, I believe the breast cancer campaign--the pink ribbon--was first. Then 9/11 came and everyone was wearing the colors of the flag, the ol' Red White and Blue, smack-dab over their hearts. You could make the pins however you wanted. With thin silk ribbons--one strand each of red, white and blue--or with wide pieces of ribbon that were pre-printed with all three patriotic colors. But, like in the late 70's, ribbons frayed. People got tired of replacing them and moved on to permanent ribbon-pins that they purchased at Wal-Mart checkouts across the nation. Instead of pinning a ribbon on, people were pinning a ribbon-pin on. These new real pins were all about the bling. They had tiny stones set into them and some even reminded us that, "We Will Never Forget." So we cheapened 9/11 a bit more and pop-cultured ribbons at the same time.

There was a problem though. All across America, safety-pins spilled from junk drawers, just asking for a purpose. This was the birth of the ribbon-campaign campaign that PR directors of organizations everywhere latched on to--now only needing to be creative when it came to the color of the ribbon. After all, the 9/11 pins were here to stay, so other ribbon campaigns were deemed a guaranteed success. Soon everyone wanted a ribbon of their own to proudly pin to their lapel so you could see they cared--about something. You might not know what that something was, but you knew they did indeed care.

After all that, we wanted to continue to show we cared because the rest of the world didn't believe we did. They thought the US was a child--only concerned with itself. So we decided to keep this new care-ethic of show. We wanted to wear our hearts on our sleeves. We decided to go more public with our ribbons and turn them into magnets for our cars. Like the young capitalist just starting his new business, we slapped magnetized signs on our vehicles advertising the cheap way.

But something always leads to something else, and we even started getting sick of our own magnet-ribbons. PR directors came together with a mission to find a new gimmick. They found it in care-bracelets. Perhaps you've seen them. Different-colored plastic bands. Again, the color of the band signifies the cause. Some of them have logos pressed into them as well--telling just what the bracelet's all about. This is necessary because, like the ribbon campaigns, no one can remember what the colors stand for!
So the blue ribbon goes to the pink ribbon, after all, it was first.