Bono has been at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to launch a new scheme to harness the selling power of top brands to raise money to fight AIDS in poor countries. The initiative is known as 'Product Red' and involves the sale of specially designed items which will have a distinctive red label, or will be entirely and unusually coloured red. Bono told reporters: "This is not a rock star cause, it's an emergency. We launch this today with four companies, we want 40, then 400, we are looking for the best and the brightest to work with us."
The first products, which will be launched in March include a red Amex card, a red Gap T-shirt manufactured in Lesotho, and specially embossed Armani sunglasses. A percentage of the proceeds of the sale of the products will go to anti-AIDS programmes, mainly for women and children in Africa.
Bono continued: "People see a world out of whack. They see the greatest health crisis in 600 years and they want to do the right thing but they're not sure what that is. Red is about doing what you enjoy and doing good at the same time. It's not philanthropy, it's business. Philanthropy is hippy, this is punk rock, even more it's hip-hop, they want to make money in the ghettos."