Before I say anything, let me just say that I love Sandisk (I am, like, their poster girl) and I do not love Alzheimer’s disease (my great-grandmother had it for many years, it’s a horrible, horrible disease). However, I am a bit weirded out by this newest promotion thing they have going on. In case you can’t read the image to the left, that is part of an email I received the other day. It basically states that Sandisk has taken a stand against Alzheimer’s disease and you can buy either a purple 2 Gigabyte SD card or a purple 2 Gigabyte USB drive. They say that some of the proceeds will go towards Alzheimer’s research.

Great! But here’s what gets me…

The USB drive is priced at $39.99, the same as its black counterpart. The SD card is one of those Ultra II things and is priced at $44.99, its counterpart is not priced on Sandisk’s website at this time. Right off the bat you might see that these are ridiculously overpriced. Of course, though I am a Sandisk lover, I never buy from their website – heck, I don’t even know if you can – I always buy at amazon.com. On amazon, the SD card is $24.99 and the USB drive is $20.48, we’re talking roughly half price what Sandisk lists.

Yes, okay, so it’s more expensive, but when you buy these purple ones rather than the black ones, you give money to Alzheimer’s… right?

Yeah, not so much.

The description of each states that for each of these items sold, Sandisk will donate *gasp* $1 to Alzheimer’s research!!! ONE dollar, one measly dollar, up to one million dollars, or while supplies last. Who knows how many they actually made.

Yes, one million dollars is great to be donated to research, but at how expensive stuff in that area is, it probably doesn’t go as far as one might think.

I just about fell out of my chair when I read that, as I really expected a bigger amount to be donated. And I’m honestly not impressed. I think a better way to go about this would be to sell these items at cost and then donate all of that to research. Otherwise, it just looks like another everyday ploy to sell more items, just more selfish advertising. Just more big business deceiving the little guy. Don’t you think?

And on the consumer’s end? Buying one of these will give many people a sense of satisfaction that they’ve “done something” against Alzheimer’s. I’m sure most won’t read the print and realize that only one dollar as been donated on their behalf. How about you save money buying them as cheap as you can and then donate the money you saved directly to Alzheimer’s? Or something like that… :P

I dunno… no big deal in the scheme of things, of course. It’s all just so illogical to me… kinda like people who load up their campers just to spend a weekend five miles from their house…