Talk:Unilever

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Contents

[edit] Etc

There should also be a note about how Unilever came to acquire Chesebrough-Pond's (famous for Vaseline). I'm too lazy to look it up right now! —LarryGilbert 00:17, 2004 Mar 7 (UTC)

Why does the article describe Sunlight Soap as 'infamous'? Is this a mistake or deliberate for some reason that escapes me? I'd have thought 'famous' would be more appropriate. Unless someone can enlighten me I may assume it's a typo and go in and change it. Chris Jefferies 09:20, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, must be a typo. Just fixed it :) --Vikingstad 18:53, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)
They may have been referring to the incident (if I'm recalling the right one) in which a large number of the people receiving free samples of Sunlight Soap in the mail mistook it for salad dressing and ingested it. Just did a quick Google search and was unable to find anything about it. --Chewyrunt 17:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... 'Revenue' versus 'Turnover'. That's interesting. Turnover is the normal term in English here in Britain, but I'm not clear what revenue means (I'll have to go and look it up). Does it mean the total income before tax and operating costs etc, or does it mean profit? If the two are equivalent then I suppose the change is OK, though a company's turnover seems natural to me. As this article otherwise follows British English, should it be restored to 'turnover'? What do others think? Chris Jefferies 13:14, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Despite the article being in British English, it looks like that company fact boxes use the term Revenue instead of Turnover (and yes, they're identical). Cf. BP for instance.--maf 19:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Exploitation in the Congo? NPOV?

Is the first paragraph of the history section really in line with Wikipedia's NPOV policy? And in any case, much of this information - if it's true - should be moved to the article Lever Brothers as it refers to events before the existence of Unilever.

The same is true of some of the links in the 'See also' section. Is 'See also: Slavery' really necessary for an article on Unilever?

Can anyone provide references to support the allegations made in this article? Chris Jefferies 09:06, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

As there's been no discussion here yet, I've removed the POV material, and the link to the book details. I suggest this material, if it goes anywhere, should go in the Lever Brothers article and be worded along the lines, 'Some people claim that...'. Chris Jefferies 16:45, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redlinks

This page has too many redlinks. IMHO only critical brands (that still dont have Wiki pages) should be redlinked. I will remove the links if others agree. Sbohra 11:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] McSpotlight

This external site is extremely out of date and many of its claims about Unilever are incorrect.

For example, Unipath was sold off some years ago (7? 8?) and AFAIK has since been sold again to another company. Crosfield Chemicals does not belong to Unilever, neither does John West.

I am removing this link, as well as the one to 'Boycott Unilever' as inaccurate and not NPOV. The 'Unilever profile' external link opens a 404 broken page message so that's going too. If anyone strongly disagrees with me, please revert the changes and add a note here to explain why.

Thanks Chris Jefferies 11:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable Deletions

A whole chapter, called "Criticism", has just been deleted on the grounds of "unsourced". Quote: " - Unilever has been criticised by the organisation Corporate Watch in the following areas: - * Promoting consumerism - * Misleading marketing - * Market domination - * Procter & Gamble and Unilever reach agreement - * Pushing the neoliberal agenda and spreading false information - * Exploiting -relatively cheap- resources in the Third World - * Promoting unsustainable agriculture - * Environmental pollution - * Using consumerism to ‘eradicate’ poverty - * Taking public space/barring imagination - * Collaboration with oppressive regimes - * Hypocritical Health Campaign induced by Self-Interest - * Excessive Pay Management " Trying to put politics aside, should/could this have been cut instead of questioned? --maf 18:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Well i think that they are pretty serious allegations and are unsourced *and* POV - If someone can find sources (maybe Corporate Watch have an article about it or something?) then fine but i don't think they have a place in the article at the moment. What is ' Pushing the neoliberal agenda and spreading false information ' supposed to mean exactly? It's a load of bollocks if you ask me. Modulus86 00:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm... The Corporate Watch website itself contains a lot of unsubstantiated claims. In my view it is very heavily biased and the link to it should be removed as it adds nothing useful to the Wikipedia article on Unilever. If anyone can give valid reasons for keeping the link it can be reinstated, but for now I'm going to remove it. Chris Jefferies 10:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not the job of Wikipedia to evaluate the truth or otherwise of these claims, merely to report that they are there. I'm reinserting a very brief criticism section, since Unilever certainly does attract some criticism from activists. It's telling that your overstretched reading of Wikipedia policies in individual cases over at least a year has managed to systematically eradicate any and all criticism of the company from this article, despite the obvious and clear conflict of interest involved. --82.45.163.18 15:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I'll leave it to others to read through the material above and add, remove, or modify criticisms of the company in the article. Yes, I'm a Unilever employee, yes I've read the relevant Wikipedia policies, no I don't think my (very infrequent) edits are in breach of those policies. Some clearly disagree, and are obviously entitled to do so. Chris Jefferies 01:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I should also mention that in the paragraph above I don't intend to suggest that I will not edit this article in future, I will certainly continue to make occasional changes as before. Chris Jefferies 08:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Corporate Censorship

This Page now features none of the criticism it once did. It appears to have been edited by the company itself to marketing purposes, as indicated by the use of corporate language(instead of NPOV encyclopedia lang), minimising criticism(instead of laying them out clearly), dissociating from criticism(instead of providing rich interlinking as is the purpose and function of a wiki)

wikipedia is getting influential and thus we are now getting PR companies editing as if they are normal users. Why the talk about 'infamous' for instance. Obviously it's an orphaned prefix from a criticism that was hidden.

Many of the censorship are by User:Chrisjj who apparently works for unilever. Is see his editing as conflict of interest and something that needs to be dealt with.

(This section was created on 4th February 2007 by an unregistered user on IP address 154.20.109.121 - Please create new sections at the bottom of talk pages and sign with four tildes. Thanks.) Chris Jefferies 09:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] *-aware under "Brands"

The article introduces concepts as "health-aware" and "family-aware". To me, this doesn't seem to be a quantifiable attribute of a product, but merely marketingspeak. I'm in favor of mentioning to which demographic a product is marketed, instead of using these meaningless words. 80.127.79.126 06:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Items retrieved in the future!

The References section claims that items 2, 3, and 4 were retrieved in August 2007. Clearly this is incorrect. A guess might be that they were retrieved in August 2006 and the year was incorrectly entered by mistake. What can we do about this? We can't really leave it like this, and we can't just fix the date because we don't know when they were retrieved.

Does anyone have any useful thoughts on the best way forward? I'm looking for something pragmatic and not controversial. For now I've noted the error in the article so that readers are at least aware that we've spotted the error.--Chris Jefferies 22:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sustainability

This section was edited to say that Unilever's move with the Rainforest Alliance got mixed reviews, without providing any support for that. hence, I have removed this. It was provided by an unregistered user. Criticism for the Rainforest Alliance can be found at that entry. Mtl1969 09:03, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Vincent1, you state 'The move has received mixed reviews: Rainforest Alliance certification, dubbed "Fairtrade lite" by various observers and news sources, is questioned in the industry[3] and was described in January 2005 by Oxford University professor Alex Nicholls as "an easy option for companies looking for a “flash in the pan at a cheap price”.[4]'

I can find no evidence that Unilever's move received mixed reviews. please provide those. a 2 year old quote regarding the Rainforest Alliance cannot be seen to apply to a move that happend in May 2007. accordingly, i have removed your edits The criticism of Rainforest Alliance exist but is extensively covered at their page Mtl1969 13:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism section of the article

Does the full text of this song in the 'Criticism' section add anything useful to an article about Unilever? I'd like to see an open discussion of this. In my opinion it simply devalues the article and Wikipedia as well.--Chris Jefferies 11:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

As nobody has commented so far I'm going to remove the words of the song, they don't belong in this article and are presumably copyright. I'm leaving the mention of the song.--Chris Jefferies 17:05, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

agree with you- full text is not relevant. Mtl1969 07:53, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think some the lyrics is quite relevant. Especially since this wikipedia article is a whitewashed version of Unilever history! With such jokes as - "[criticism] devalues the article" indicating the total lack of a critical perspective quite susinctly. Wikipedia is not meant to be a boosterism website. I agree that hiding all the useful information in the article in the Criticism Section is a problem - letting the rest be a guide to brand awareness to promote the company... Also, Copyright of Chumbawamba lyrics is for public use, if you had bothered to look it up before censoring.Rusl 19:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I removed the line 'Unilever gives funding and support to planned parenthood, a leading pro-abortion organization.' from the Criticism section. First of all, it lacks a Global View- i presume this is a US-only issue not really relevant to the other markets that Unilever operates. Second, it doesn;t contain any references or sources. Third, with a multinational like Unilever you can probably find a local boycot discussion in every market they operate- i think the objective of this wikipedia article is to give an overveiw of the subject at a global level, not to go into the nitty gritty of every discussion in every market around the world. Mtl1969 09:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree; I removed it two days earlier but it crept back in. Abtract 10:19, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clutter

Care needs to be taken not to clutter articles uneccesarily with the addition of "UK" just as a matter of principle. For instance London and Rotterdam in this article are sufficiently well known not to need the addition of their countries - note the articles on these cities do not have the country in the title. For the very small number of people who may be confused, there is a difect link anyway. IMHO these country additions simply add clutter for no gain. :) Abtract 11:00, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Stating the UK is consistent with other Wiki FTSE 100 company entries and also accurate. The possibility it is cluttered is not an issue with regards the fact, but an issue with regards the layout of the page itself...perhaps this should be addressed? Other encyclopaedias would and do state "London, UK". There is no reason Wiki should be any different. It is essential to have consistency across Wiki and this Unilever article is now inconsistent. Darkieboy236 11:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
MMM I don't agree, asthetics are important whereas "facts" in detail simply for principle sake are not. But I will go along with concesus should it be for adding UK. Abtract 11:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Your point about clutter is reasonable. Perhaps there is something that can be done to de-clutter without removing the facts? Darkieboy236 11:34, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
That's easy ... simply leave out the unecessary countries as has been the case in this article sincle its inception - almost all people likely to be reading wp will know them and for the few that are in doubte they will follow the links to london or rotterdam, that being what internal links are for. Abtract 11:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Still not accurate. If there was only one London on planet Earth then it would be more acceptable. However, there are approx 25-30 other places on this planet called London, therefore it should be stated that the one in question is the one in the UK. If it was one of the many Londons in the USA or one of the Londons in Canada it would be made clear which one it is, so there is no difference with the one in the UK. You and I know which London it is, but please don't assume that every one else knows. That is making an assumption and encyclopaedias are not about making assumptions. Darkieboy236 11:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Reed Elsevier Another UK-Dutch company with dual HQ. Darkieboy236 12:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I notice you added "The Netherlands" and "UK". Abtract 16:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, with no objections as it is factually correct. Darkieboy236 21:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] widely listed?

what does widely listed mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.195.185.125 (talk) 06:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this refers to the fact that the company's share price is listed by many newspapers, business magazines and websites, stock dealers etc. As this is the opening sentence of the article, perhaps it should be reworded and/or linked to an article on share dealing where the term 'widely listed' might be defined. The reference given doesn't actually help define the meaning. --Chris Jefferies 00:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] before Heartbrand?

The article states that Heartbrand was begun in 1999. I remember many of the national brands in different countries all using the same (pre-heart) logos long before that date. What was the situation before the heart? Were they owned by a different company? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cospelero (talk • contribs) 17:33, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Home and Personal Care

The article states that almost all of Unilever's brands fall into two categories, Food and Beverages, and Home and Personal Care. What follows is a Food and Beverage section, with no Personal Care products listed afterwards. A check of history shows that the entire section with all products was deleted by an unregistered user. I am restoring this section as best I can. If there are factual problems with the list as it existed, these should be explained before deleting the entire section. --Bridgecross 20:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A & W Canada ownership?

This article reads that Unilever owns A & W in Canada. This is an entirely new addition, and there is no citation. Furthermore, on Unilever's international website and it's Canadian website there is no A & W listed in it's brands. Is this true? 63.24.123.233 17:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I work for Unilever and even I can't be sure about this! I don't think it's correct - but you're right, we need something to cite. If I can find out one way or another I'll add the details here on the Talk page. --Chris Jefferies 00:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Didn't take as long as I thought, A & W is owned by Cadbury-Schweppes according to their Company website. As the item in the Unilever article is demonstrably incorrect I think I'll just remove it. --Chris Jefferies 00:49, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Cadbury owns the A&W Root Beer brand and not the Canadian A&W restaurant chain. I did some more research, Unilever owned A&W Food Services of Canada from 1972 until July 1995. A management buyout was initiated by former CEO Jeffrey Mooney ([1]). Toni S. 06:40, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

An impressive bit of research, I salute you! Seems pretty definitive. --Chris Jefferies 08:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay, great! I had a lot of doubts about that bit o' "Information". 63.24.108.40 (talk) 17:42, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Addition youtube criticism

I added the recent criticism of the Dove vs. Axe ad campaigns, including a major media outlet's article about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcas (talk • contribs) 07:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a relevant addition but a little too extensive for an encyclopedic article. I suggest it be trimmed down to become a useful summary- if people want to know more they can then follow the links or references. Remember that this article is supposed to give an overview of Unilever as a company through time and worldwide. dedicating a fith of the article to the dove-axe controversy seems a bit excessive. Mtl1969 (talk) 12:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Good suugestion ... I have acted on it. Abtract (talk) 13:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] comments moved from personal talk page

If Unilever competes against Kraft Foods & Mars Inc., Why does Oreo, M&Ms and Snickers all use Breyers for their Ice Cream?

Minor co-operations between competitors is not uncommon. I am going to move this section to the unilever article where it has more relevance. Abtract (talk) 23:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Unilever.svg

Image:Unilever.svg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 02:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC)