red's art heist- 7 reasons why it's brilliant

Influx Insights — 2008-02-15T16:24:43Z

RED, the brand designed and built to raise money for Africa, has been keeping a low profile in the last few months that was until yesterday.

As we all know, money talks.

In a single day, RED raised an incredible $42.6 million to add to the $50 million raised to date through its efforts with brands.

It did it with an auction of contemporary art.

Here's are 7 reasons why its brilliant.

1. Contemporary art is simply the hottest and most valuable product out there- prices have been going through the roof in recent years

2. Big name artists are the hottest brands there are- especially guys like Damien Hirst who had work in the auction

3. Rare and limited editions have a premium value- so art created especially for RED- fitted that criteria

4. RED leveraged its celebrity founders to give the art and the auction cache.

5. Playing to the guilt factor- like the RED brand in general- purchasers can feel good about buying and artists feel like valued contributors

6. Partnering with Sotheby’s added status and value to the event

7. Holding the auction on Valentine's Day, gave the event a theme and an anchor

This piece, a collaboration between Banksy and Damien Hirst was supposed to fetch $200k, but ended up going for $1.8 million!

Economists frequently tell us that we are a time of incredible wealth with a new class of super-rich, RED's strategy of pushing its brand upstream, creating an event to capture this wealth and line its own pockets, is pure genius.

Posted by Ed Cotton

Influx Insights Tag Feed: sotheby's

red's art heist- 7 reasons why it's brilliant