By Teresa von Fuchs
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Virgin Mobile USA’s latest charity stunt has come under fire from some of the groups it was intended to benefit. The MVNO’s national Web campaign to generate clothing for homeless youth asked people to post striptease videos of themselves, and promised to donate a new item of clothing for every five times a video was watched. Called Strip2Clothe, the campaign was a partnership between Virgin Mobile USA and the National Network For Youth (NN4Y), a Washington, D.C., lobby group representing more than 150 homeless youth focused organizations.
However, a backlash from NN4Y member organizations have caused the campaign to be temporarily shut down. Catholic Charities reportedly said that it was never consulted about the stunt and has called the campaign “distasteful,” “inappropriate” and “exploitative.” The organization’s names have been taken off the site, and NN4Y has reportedly said the campaign has been “limited and it’s being re-evaluated.”
Last we checked, the site, though still up, has been stripped of information and videos. Virgin Mobile spokesperson Corinne Nosal said that despite criticism, the carrier does not have plans to pull the site. “At this point, we are not pulling the site, this issue [of homeless youth] is really important to us, we’ve had over 12,000 hits for the site so far, and we want to continue to raise awareness for this important issue,” Nosal said in an interview.