GAGA about the MAC AIDS Fund: Make up for a good cause!

When she’s not wearing a meat dress, being carried around in an egg-like “vessel,” or in a gold coffin sporting a fake pregnant belly, Lady Gaga is using her celebrity for a greater good. She says “I don’t want to make money, I want to make a difference”. Via the Viva Glam range Lady Gaga is helping M.A.C (the cult Canadian make-up brand created in 1985) to raise funds and awareness for the MAC AIDS Foundation.

Created in 1994 by the founders of the MAC company Frank Angelo and Frank Toskan, the fund seeks to help people living with HIV/AIDS: “making a difference one VIVA GLAM lipstick at a time”. The VIVA GLAM lipstick was the first lipstick created to directly confront and raise money and awareness for AIDS at a time when the pandemic affected the fashion makeup communities and was largely stigmatized as a gay disease. With 100% of the money going directly to people affected by HIV/AIDS, it was a bold and unprecedented move. 

“VIVA GLAM spokespeople are provocative, alternative and influential and reflect diverse communities” states their websites. Previous spokespeople included:  RuPaul, (a drag queen), Mary J. Blige (American singer), Lil’Kim Missy Elliott (female rappers), Sir Elton John (English singer, composer, pianist and philanthropist), Boy George (British new romantic singer-song writer known for promoting androgyny in the 80s with Culture Club), Lisa Marie Presley (daughter of Elvis and Pricilla Presely and American singer and songwriter), Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, Pamela Anderson, Dita Von Tesse, Linda Evangelista (model), Chloe Sevigny (American film actress often in avant-garde or controversial films for example in 1995’s Larry Clark, Sevigny plays a NY teenager who discovers she is HIV positive), and Christina Aguilera (recording artist).

 

The first Gaga Viva Glam’s campaign was done with Cyndi Lauper but Gaga gives an encore...

She has played a crucial role in helping raise $202 million for the fund. Coming in at number 1 of Forbes’ Celebrity Power List on May 2011, with millions of fans worldwide 32 million Facebook friends and over 10 million followers on Twitter, Gaga, with her army of “little monsters!”,  possess a media power that any company would love to utilize. MAC is therefore proud to have that Lady continue her representation for the second year in a row.

“She’s had a phenomenal effect on the sales of VIVA GLAM products and our ability to raise awareness,” said John Demsey, chairman of the MAC AIDS Fund and group president of Estee Lauder North America.
The MAC AIDS Fund receives every penny from the sale of VIVA GLAM lip products, making it the third largest corporate donor for HIV/AIDS in the United States. This year the cosmetics company upped their goal, hoping to raise $50 million in VIVA GLAM sales by the International AIDS Conference in 2012. “We gave ourselves a bigger goal because our company is bigger, and Lady Gaga is bigger than ever,” said Demsey.

 Lady Gaga said: “I am incredibly passionate about this campaign and strongly believe the MAC AIDS Fund has the power to create global movement not only to combat HIV/AIDS, but also to encourage men and women everywhere to protect themselves”. Gaga was born this way, Glam this way. You’re on the right track...

Lagy Gaga is to Madonna what MAC is to an enterprise without any social goal: its new business model.

http://www.macaidsfund.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RxLIrR7PXs