I was at Ruby Tuesday the other day, and as I’m perusing the dessert menu, I come across this statement:
???????? ????? ????????When You Buy Our Gourmet Cookies You Help Us Feed Hungry Children and Families.
That’s right. Ruby Tuesday is offering to donate 10% of the price of those cookies to America’s Second Harvest.
Only in America would someone think of this angle to sell dessert. It’s brilliant, in a calculating cynical sort of way.
There was a time when organizations would show pictures of starving third-world children on TV and in magazines and ask affluent Americans to exercise a small modicum of self-sacrifice by sending $20 a month to help feed them. They’d actually assign you a child and your donation would directly help that boy or girl. You could even write letters to each other while the child was going through school; you could keep tabs on his or her progress. The act of charity and the relationship you fostered would be the blessing.
In contrast, buying cookies at Ruby Tuesday is an exercise in instant gratification. Rather than a long-term commitment to a relationship, you can just buy a dozen delicious cookies, indulge your appetite, and yet still feel a sense of self-satisfaction that somehow, through your transaction to buy yourself food you don’t need, you’ve helped feed one of your less-fortunate fellow citizens.
This has the added bonus of turning the tables of guilt when it comes to dessert. Often, the people who buy dessert feel guilty because of the large portion size, going off their diet, or a host of other reasons, whereas the people who pass on dessert feel virtuous and are perceived (if only to themselves) as paragons of self-control.
Thanks to Ruby Tuesday, it’s the dessert eaters who are the virtuous ones. Their over-indulgence is no longer a vice; it’s an act of mercy that will help poor, starving families. In contrast, non-dessert-eaters are cheap, cold-hearted, and decidedly uncharitable. It’s clear they don’t care about starving families in America since they won’t so much as buy a cookie to help them.
Of course, the real hero here is Ruby Tuesday. This little promotion makes them look like a saintly corporation, putting people before profits and giving back to the community. Plus, they get to keep the other 90% of the proceeds from their increased cookie/charity sales. It’s a win-win!
Reminds me of Walmart’s big push to go “green” and convince the public what a enviro-friendly company they are, when the only reason they’re actually doing it is to save money.
I find Ruby Tuesday to overpriced for what you get and I refuse to be guilted into buying a cookie.
I know! The very idea that free enterprise contributes to prosperity! Hrmph!
I have more respect for barefaced capitalism than the kind of “free enterprise” that cloaks itself in charity. That was my point.
Actually, I’ve written about this before. I can think of no act of charity of altruism that is not possible without an underlying act of selfishness. You have to HAVE money to give it away.
How many people actually get through a meal when they are dining out and end up getting dessert? I’m guessing the majority of us don’t whether we’re dieting or not. So, as saintly as they are, why put this deal only on the dessert menu?
I think they would get more credit if they put their entire menu toward feeding starving people. Might make me a bit hungrier for Ruby Tuesday…
Egoistic altruism, eh Billy Dennis?
What a noble endeavor (see Lawrence Kohlberg’s stage of Moral Development)
What you label prosperity, some of us call exploitation of the masses. See what an equitable system free enterprise in America has created?
(See Thom Hartman’s “Screwed” or anything by Barbara Ehrenreich)