7 months ago, there was a fire in Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral which destroyed and damaged several parts of the building among art and interior within. Since Notre-Dame is one of the greatest symbols of Paris and maybe even Europe, the public were devastated. Many works of art and religious relics did not survive the damage caused by the fire. However, due to its strong foundation the 850-year-old building did not collapse.
Several donations were given so the master piece could be rebuilt and restored, and suddenly it hit almost 1 billion dollars. Nonetheless, were the public critical for some of the large donations and questioned their motivation. The public didn’t fully come to terms with some of the larger sums and started to wonder why some billionaires and corporations offered so much, so quickly.
It spiked a huge interest in the public among tons of wealthy people. The owners of the high-end fashion brand Gucci alone pledged to donate 113 million dollars for the restorations. It almost seemed like a trend was developed among the wealthy community. Suddenly the cathedral had collected over 1 billion dollars just like that, while people are living on the streets around the monument itself. No wonder people were raising questions.
However, this is a great example of a positive externality because the donation for this reconstruction generates benefits that are not priced by the market and will give the cathedral the opportunity to come back.
People meant that some of the donations looked more like sponsorships rather than donations. Because hearing about Gucci donating such large sum of money seems almost too good to be true, just to save the cathedral. What they are doing is reaching a niche audience, and by that, I mean among all the wealthy art collectors. They are creating an image that are stimulating a lot of people at once. On another note, this “sponsorship” can’t be considered a sponsorship (if not genius) because this is something people will never forget.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris
Picture of Notre-Dame:
https://www.google.com/search?q=notre+dame+fire&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS708US708&sxsrf=ACYBGNT4bLZfDsLhPaqgiEjOLVywwXEPLA:1572980767366&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIjYL_4dPlAhXLeZoKHT2eASgQ_AUIEigB&biw=1280&bih=672#imgrc=obSwZUxTLU1xzM
Making sense of art and design industries 