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March 21, 2006
Colgate-Palmolive Buys Tom's of Maine
If you are the type who's bummed out to learn that Unilever owns Ben & Jerry's, or that Philip Morris owns Boca Burger, Balance Bar, and Altoids (you didn't know?), then prepare for another bummer.
Colgate-Palmolive Company announced today it will purchase 84 percent of natural toothpaste maker Tom's of Maine (not, of course, to be confused with Tom of Finland).
"The U.S. market for Natural oral and personal care products is valued at $3 billion and is growing at 15 percent per year," the company said in a statement. "Tom's of Maine, founded in 1970 by Tom and Kate Chappell, pioneered natural toothpaste, mouthwash, and deodorant, and is the #1 Oral Care Brand in the Natural category. Tom's of Maine gives Colgate the opportunity to enter the fast growing health and specialty trade channel where Tom's toothpaste is the clear market leader commanding 60% share of that channel."
"We have great admiration for Tom and Kate Chappell and the values-based business they have created," said Reuben Mark, Colgate's Chairman and CEO. He stopped short of saying which, if any, of those values would remain in the new Colgate unit, but said Tom Chappell will remain on and lead the company from its headquarters in Kennebunk, Maine.
Though I really have no need for them here, I have to retain the following canned quotes (which, surely were actually written by Colgate's PR department), just because they are so utterly lame and typical of a press release:
Ian Cook, Colgate's President and COO, said, "This acquisition allows Colgate to strongly enter a completely new channel of distribution and establishes us as the only global oral care company in that channel. This bodes well for additional opportunities in other high margin categories such as personal care. Further, our truly global reach will help speed the growth of the naturals health and specialty business outside the U.S. With gross profit margins a full ten percentage points higher than Colgate's margin, Tom's of Maine is a logical acquisition as we continue to prioritize our global oral and personal care categories."
Tom's of Maine co-founders Tom and Kate Chappell said, "We chose Colgate as our partner because they have the global expertise to help take Tom's of Maine to the next level. Just as importantly, we see Colgate as an excellent fit with our own cultural values. Colgate has a commitment to product excellence, to global efforts to promote oral health and has a 200-year history of caring for consumers and for giving back to the community. We are excited by Colgate's desire to continue Tom's of Maine leadership and heritage in natural care."
Mike Freak of CultureFreak.com said, "It's exciting to see Colgate use its robust, global reach to leverage the mom-and-pop stylings of Tom's of Maine and ramp it up into the stratosphere. I have soft spot in my heart for Tom's, having always enjoyed their cinnamon and, more recently, their awesome apricot toothpaste. But I have an even softer spot in my heart for Colgate's fantastic red and white logo. To see these companies become one almost makes me tear up."
Posted by MJuhre at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2006
End of Empire
The barbarians are at the gates and, after this week's World Baseball Classic, I think we can safely say for sure that the American Empire is on the decline.
If it isn't bad enough that low-skilled jobs and, more recently, high-skilled jobs are going to Canada, China and India, now we can't even freakin' play baseball.
First, Canada, our NAFTA partner to the north (we get maple syrup, they get our "nearshore" IT jobs), beat us 8-6 . Then South Korea, a country whose continued existence theoretically relies on our fixed force of over 30,000 troops, slammed us 7-3. For the final humiliation the Americans got edged out of the tournament altogether by Mexico, our NAFTA partner to the South (we get cheap day laborers and busboys, they get Wal-Mart). Actually, I suppose the final humiliation really would be if Cuba wins it. The three other remaining teams are Japan, the Dominican Republic, and South Korea.
Wow do we lose. At least we know we'll win the "World Series." The Canadians have only won that once.
Posted by MJuhre at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)
Airforce Nutrisoda Brand Ambassador
The ridiculously curious can sometimes be surprisingly simple. The following is just a want ad I found while trolling craigslist for future freelance work.
I used to be pretty obsessed with beverage marketing. If I ever find the time, maybe I'll investigate nutrisoda and decide if the word its worthy of being added to my MarketSpeak collection of obscure and/or dumb marketing terms. Who knows? Maybe I'll even write a more expansive piece in the Beverage Crap section of Culture Freak. (Nah, one quick look at this site and I can see this looks like your basic "nutraceutical meets beverage to become gentrified Kool-Aid product" story.) Dumbest quote for my money: "Don't confuse nutrisoda with energy drinks." God forbid.
______________
Airforce Nutrisoda Brand Ambassador
AIRFORCE NUTRISODA
Minnesota-based Ardea Beverages is the international bottler of airforce Nutrisoda. Not to be confused with energy drinks, Nutrisodas are delicious, refreshing, and nutritious upgrades to traditional soda. For product information check out www.nutrisoda.com.
OPPORTUNITY: New York City Brand Ambassador
Airforce Nutrisoda is experiencing tremendous national growth and is currently building a team of dedicated Brand Ambassadors. This opportunity should only be considered by passionate, smart, trustworthy, fashion-forward, energetic, self-starters that will appreciate the opportunity to help build a brand from the ground level.
Brand Ambassadors are responsible for building airforce Nutrisoda's brand awareness throughout the city. While "being the brand" you will seek out and cultivate credible relationships with New York City tastemakers in the subcultures of fashion, art, music...anything that screams innovation. These relations will spawn supported event opportunities, product tastings, sales opportunities, etc. that our Brand Ambassadors will be expected to execute against. Working with and on behalf of our distributor partners will be paramount.
DETAILS:
• Full Time position = full benefits (health, dental, vision, 401K)
• 2 weeks vacation
• Company car
Serious inquiries only
4 year B.A. preferred, marketing experience preferred
Posted by MJuhre at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2006
White House Fraudster Allen's Existence Erased
The Bush administration has vaporized Claude A. Allen. Usually I'm reluctant to invoke Orwell analogies for fear of sounding cliche.
Lucky for me, the Bush administration occasionally provides the mandate to do so.
Until sometime very recently, the biography of disgraced Bush policy adviser Claude Allen’s could be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/leadership/bio_10.html. Today, visiting that link results in a 404 (“no file found”) error page. Funny, administration bios 9 and 11 are online, but as far as can be determined now from the White House’s Web site, Claude Allen might never have worked there.
Fine.
One could easily make the argument that, since Allen abruptly left his $161,000 position as domestic policy adviser to President Bush in February, one month after being charged with defrauding a Target retail store, his bio would be pulled since he is no longer a White House employee.
The only problem with this argument is that, while Allen’s “bio_10.html” file is gone, the active page “bio_9.html,” is the bio of former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh, who left office in March 2003 and has been succeeded twice.
So, as uninteresting as Allen’s White House bio may be (at least, compared Allen’s emerging profile as a man who defrauded at least 25 stores of more than $5000), here is our screen capture and cached version of that page.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Posted by MJuhre at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
March 08, 2006
Update to Yesterday's Post
If you read yesterday's post, U.S. Top Envoy to Iraq Hints at "Civil War", go back and see the update at the end. Today Borzou shed new light on the key question I raised, before I even had a chance to ask him (thanks Rachel Maddow!).
Posted by MJuhre at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2006
U.S. Top Envoy to Iraq Hints at "Civil War"
Zalmay Khalilzad, the top U.S. envoy to Iraq and a former oil industry consultant who nine years ago "was chatting pleasantly over dinner with leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban regime about their shared enthusiasm for a proposed multibillion-dollar pipeline deal (Washington Post)," has finally dropped the bomb.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Khalilzad said "potential is there" for civil war in Iraq. (Why yes, I'd say Iraq has a LOT of potential for, and quite possibly an already kinetic, civil war.) "'We have opened the Pandora's box and the question is, what is the way forward?'" Khalilzad added.
"Khalilzad's central message that the United States cannot immediately pull out of Iraq jibed with Bush administration policy," writes Daragahi. "But he offered a far gloomier picture than assessments made in recent days by U.S. military spokesmen."
The question in my mind: Did Khalilzad here execute a slip of the tongue when faced with a skilled journalist? Or, has the Bush administration actually tapped "less visible" [to Joe America] executors of policy to create a slow leak of admission that Iraq is in a civil war (remember kids, "sectarian strife" is a synonym)?
Khalilzad has been a right-wing policy enforcer since the Reagan days and, as Daragahi notes, "is among the architects of the U.S. plan to reshape the political balance of the Middle East after the Sept. 11 attacks." (Here I'll read between the lines for you: Khalizad is a Neocon who, along with Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, Willam Kristol, and others, sought the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as far back as 1997. FUN FACT: 1997 was the same year that Khalilzad, as a consultant for the American oil company Unocal, had dinner with Taliban leaders.)
Ahem. Anyway. Is the Bush administration on its way to "admitting" that Iraq is entering a civil war, in the only pussy ass way it can muster, by keeping mum while shielding itself with more vocal pawns of the policy arena?
I guess we will just have to keep our ears open to find out.
***UPDATE - March 8, 2006***
Today, Borzou was a guest on Rachel Maddow Show (which, if you haven't figured out by now, I listen to religiously). As though reading my mind, Rachel asked Borzou almost precisely my question above.
Maddow: [Citing recent comments from Donald Rumsfeld that the is media exaggerating the violence in Iraq and others who downplay the 'sectarian strife in Iraq] "Has the ambassador been toeing that sort of line that you've been hearing from other people in the administration until now?"
Daragahi: You know, actually the ambassador has not been. On the issue of a possible civil war in Iraq, he's been very frank from the very beginning of the latest crisis which broke out on the 22nd of February after the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samara. He's been quite open about the fact that the country was on the brink of a new level of conflict and that it had pulled back. So he's been very, very, very open about that.
Maddow: Do you sense that his assessment and his frankness about that -- about the risks in Iraq, and the level of violence there right now -- the fact that it does contrast so strongly with what we're hearing right now from Donald Rumsfeld and from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs [of Staff], do you sense that there's any political tension around that, around these two different lines coming from the administration?
Daragahi: Well I can only sort of speculate -- make an informed speculation -- but I think it is important to note that there are these upcoming discussions about ... whether it's possible to reduce troop levels this year, and I think there might be a little bit of worry on the part of certain people in the administration that, were the U.S. to reduce troops dramatically this year, that it might send the wrong message to Sunni arabs who are feeling increasingly besieged by the Shiite-controlled security ministies and might be inspired to form their own militias, which would be potentially another level of chaos and violence in this country -- that it would be an encouragement to the very very extremist Salafi insurgents such as Abu Musab Al Zarqawi who are looking for any signs of weakness in the U.S. And it might also be an encouragement to Tehran -- neighboring Iran definitely has plans on Iraq and its got a geopolitical vision that includes keeping strategic interest in Iraq -- so I'm sure there's a little bit of fear there.
Posted by MJuhre at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)
Reagan's Bartlett says Bush Doomed the GOP
"It is manifestly clear that Bush has not helped the Republican party politically and I think he is setting them up for a fall which we may see as early as the Congressional elections in November."
These are the words of conservative Bruce Bartlett, who worked in the Reagan White House and authored the 1981 bestseller Reaganomics. His new book, Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, hit the shelves February 28.
Speaking today on Air America Radio's Rachel Maddow Show, Bartlett said Bush's poll numbers will take down some prominent Republicans in this year's elections.
"No Republican member of Congress is going to get reelected with those kinds of [Bush poll] numbers dragging them down, and I think its only a matter of time before the rats start deserting the sinking ship," he said.
The question, of course, is can those rats, who for six years have blindly and willfully stuck by their man Dubya, now shake themselves loose from the rat-trap that his his failed presidency? I sure hope not. That is neater and cleaner than I think is realistic.
Bartlett doesn't seem to think so either, though his book is designed to inspire debate among those in the right wing, in order to salvage the right's political gains and, he believes, the Reagan legacy, policy-wise.
Bush, said Bartlett, called Bush "a failure" and "just a partisan Republican" who "substituted partisan Republicanism -- that is, doing things to help his side, help his pals..." for real conservativism, based on "a desire for power." "But power for what purpose?" he asked. "For its own sake?"
Bartlett even had some strategic political advice for Democrats and said he'd take Bill Clinton over George W. any day:
Bartlett: In the last two election cycles they ran away from Bill Clinton which, whatever else you want to say about him, he was politically effective; he was politically popular, he won two national elections and he was the first Democrat to do that since Franklin D. Roosevelt. I think that getting back to what was good about Bill Clinton's policies might be the ticket for the Democrats to get back in power.
Maddow: At this point I feel, I almost feel like if Clinton could run again he'd win with about, you know, almost a Kim Jong Il proportion of the vote.
Bartlett: Well, if he was running against George W. Bush I'd vote for him.
Maddow: (laughing) I bet you never thought you'd say that before this predidency worked out this way.
Bartlett: (laughing) No I wouldn't!
Posted by MJuhre at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)
March 03, 2006
Back To Reality
U.S. Says McCain Anti-torture Law does Not Apply at Gitmo
Posted by MJuhre at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)
Running Man
( Sorry. I needed a light-hearted (if still dystopic) interlude.) With only 37 percent of California voters saying they would reelect Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Gubernator's popularity may be almost bad as Bush's.
But, at least he's fulfilling foul futuristic fantasies of the fashion made famous by Roger Corman, by hosting pay-per-view, ultimate fighting bouts at his upcoming fitness weekend in Ohio.
"Governor to star as gladiator 'god'He'll appear in Ohio at blood-and-guts kickoff to fitness expo" - San Francisco Chronicle
"Schwarzenegger pumped up about Ohio fitness festival" - San Jose Mercury News
Sadly, I could only find that dinky ad above for the gladiator event. But then again, aren't the large ad images I did find are more amusing anyway?
Welp, here's waitin' for the Arnold Schwarzenegger Presidential Library.
Posted by MJuhre at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)