Ending Hunger? Really?

I had to laugh today after I heated up my chicken pot pie for lunch and noticed the RED PUSH-PIN GRAPHIC on the front of the box.

 

Now let me say this....I get advertising. Shoot. I have a degree in it. I am no expert by any means but I get it. I get the way companies try to sell more products. I get the lengths they will go to develop brand recognition. I get the emotional factor they try to create in the public about their company. Most companies don't just do things. They do things for a reason/motive. There is a motive behind everything they do...or a goal behind everything they do.

 

The problem: I think they created the wrong emotional attachment to their company from Stacey Niessner today. Yeah, and I guess I'm only one person but that's all that matters to me. lol!

 

Let me explain.

 



That red push-pin graphic says "CHILD HUNGER ends here." Below that it says "enter now. 1 CODE = 1 MEAL" Then it has the Feeding America logo and in small print says "See back for code and details. Program ends 8/28/14."

All I could think was... REALLY?!?!?! Really Marie Calendar's?! REALLY?!?!
So if I go to a website and enter some code, you will give a meal to a child. This is your effort to end child hunger?! So you can't just donate meals to children who are STARVING! You need me to enter a code for you to do that. You are probably a multi-million dollar company and the only way you are going to be considerate enough to help hungry children is for me to take initiative or perform an action. I did perform an action. I bought your chicken pot pie! How about you be truly humanitarian and donate a meal for every meal purchased!?! Does't that make more sense? But you wouldn't want to give too much to children who are starving. It would be better to just wait until I push a button since you can guarantee most people will not do that so you won't have to give away too many meals.

Am I the only one who sees it that way? It's called good will. It's called charity. If they really wanted me to look favorably upon their company wouldn't they just donate the meals and then label their boxes with a big ole' "1 MILLION CHILDREN FED in effort to stop child hunger."

I'm not sure why this angered me so much. It just did.

The thing is I was still going to go to the website to enter the code (and see if there was a place I could voice my opinion...not that my little ol' opinion means much but sometimes I just get in the mood to do that.) But I got in a flurry of things going on in my office and threw the box away and the janitors emptied my trash can already. So I guess one kid will go on starving because I didn't enter my code. That's awful. That's horrible to even think about.

Anyway....*steps down off the soap box.*