Fad or Hip New Fashion Trend?

Recently, i noticed more and more people sporting rubber wristbands which had some slogan or another engraved on them.

Its amazing how fads like this suddenly pop out of nowhere, and transform rather ordinary, unremarkable things into a 'trendy' fashion all of a sudden.
When i queried Bernard regarding this, i was told that wearing these bands of rubber with "inspirational slogans" on them is a 'hip and in thing' nowadays.

Interestingly, the main figurehead for promoting these wristbands turns out to be none other than the corporate fast-food giant, McDonalds. Now the sales model for this is that McDonalds is selling these bands for RM 2.90 each, with any purchase.

And as quoted from the official McDonalds Malaysia website,

"Express yourself with the the coolest fashion item in McDonald's Malaysia- the McDonald's True Colors Bands ™ "

To make it seem less like they're selling what is basically a glorified rubber band,

"Every 10sen from the sale of the True Colors Bands™ will be donated to the Give a Gift of Smile campaign in aid of Malaysian children born with a cleft lip and palate. Its ONLY RM2.90 each with ANY PURCHASE. So start your collection, come on and donate in style! You can make a difference!"

Now, using simple logic, McDonalds is set to get a crapload of profits from the sales of these bands alone. To put a conservative estimate, all overhead & misc. costs (manufacturing, labor, transportation, advertising etc.) per band is at most RM1 (it should be much less than this), so minus this and the ten cents for the "donation", they reap a net profit of RM 1.80 each band. That is alot of money people. How? Lets look at this example.
McDonalds manages to sell 100 of such bands a day in one outlet, plus a Value Meal each. The profit from these alone would net RM180, not counting the boost in the staple sales products. Thats RM1260 a week, and RM5040 a month. And, assuming ceteris paribus, should each of the 158 McDonalds outlets in the country draw a similar mean amount of rubber band sales, the grand total they make per month is RM796,320 on a nationwide scale. RM9,555,840 a year, a pretty nice sum indeed.

Now, this product might be running for a month or two tops, but the number of customers who patronise these McDonalds outlets who are likely to buy these wristband, is certainly alot more than 100 a day. Factor in the people who'd actually collect every single one of them.... you get the picture.

Now, in the interests of professional journalism (and i don't assume i am such, well not yet anyway.), I'm not trying to give any sort of "bad name" to McDonalds, just an observation i found interesting regarding sales techniques, and sales pitch.

However, on a related matter, lets expand on the subject of donations while we're at it, shall we?

Earlier i brought up the subject of that 10 cents that would be contributed to their own privately set up foundation.

My question is, is it ethical to collect donations for profit? Most donation organisations are supposed to be non-profit, but is there any real regulatory body to serve as a watchdog over these bodies? And is there anyone to watch for frauds out to make a quick buck? Take the recent SEA Tsunami disaster, and the subsequent donation drives that were organised.

Every tom, dick and harry started collecting "donations" for "the Tsunami victims". I was approached by a group of such "donation collectors" while in a shopping mall then, who claimed they were volunteers from some international donation collection organisation. I felt something was fishy about them, so i declined to donate.
Later when i got home, i did a websearch on the organisation they mentioned, lo and behold, no such organisation existed. Immediately my suspicions that they were scammers was confirmed.

Hell, i've seen Fake Buddhist monks running around collecting "alms" (interestingly enough, they insist on being given cold hard cash in quantities of not less than RM10).

I've seen people "stranded" at bus stops, roadsides and LRT stations who somehow didn't have enough money to return to that faraway hometown in Johor or N. Sembilan, but still sing the same tune a day later, at the same exact spot even after you've given them enough "donations" to last them 2 trips.

So rule of the thumb: never, ever donate unless you're sure its genuine. And even then, do a little research first regarding their track record for delivering the promised aid. That is, if you want to be an informed consumer.

Hmm, you know, maybe i'll get one of those cool "trendy", "hip" and "in" wristbands myself.
*hears conscience committing Hara-kiri*
*hears personal integrity commiting seppuku*
*hears common sense say "Et tu, LynX!?" in pained, resigned manner before dying from multiple backstab wounds (sneak attack backstab dmg +150)*