This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
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)
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)
"The amalgamation of the operations of British soapmaker Lever Brothers ,William Hulme Lever and Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie, Anton Jurgens en Samuel van den Bergh, a merger as palm oil was a major raw material for both margarines and soaps and could be imported more efficiently in larger quantities." - This sentence in the History section is incoherent and needs to be rewritten. -- BenStrauss ( talk) 14:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
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)
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) -- 213.70.98.2 ( talk) 11:00, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
what does widely listed mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.195.185.125 ( talk) 06:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
If Unilever competes against Kraft Foods & Mars Inc., Why does Oreo, M&Ms and Snickers all use Breyers for their Ice Cream?
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)
The criticism section of the article now contains a strong condemnation of Unilever for destroying rainforest for palm oil production. A more balanced view might take account of statements like this one from Greenpeace. 'Unilever is supporting our call for a moratorium on the ground but even though they are the biggest buyer they represent only 3 per cent of the palm oil purchasers and the moratorium will need a lot more support from other companies before we see real change on the ground in Indonesia.' The paragraph is taken from the Greenpeace website.
See also articles by Mongabay, Industry Week, Ethical Corporation, and of course Unilever's remarks about its own track record may also have some relevance.
The quality of the article and the standing of Wikipedia both depend on achieving balance, ie NPOV. There seems to be a strange perception in the minds of some that a company view is bound to be partisan while the view of a pressure group is not. As a Unilever employee it's probably not advisable for me to do more than raise this on the discussion page. The same might be true for any member of a protest organisation. -- Chris Jefferies ( talk) 10:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
(RFCecon tag was here.)
Some of the material in the Criticism section may be inaccurate or PoV. As an employee of Unilever I do not wish to edit the article but would like others to consider the section and edit it if necessary.
The part that troubles me most is the claim, 'In Ivory Coast, too, Unilever is clearing forest for oil palm plantation'. Thanks for adding the fact tag, that's useful. It's a bold claim that is (I believe) POV and unsupportable. Let's see if the author can come up with a suitable reference.
The next sentence is also a cause for concern. To present as a fact, that Unilever is directly responsible for threatening an endangered primate species is entirely unsupportable, I think. Is the reference unbiased? If the article contains a reference to Wildvet.at perhaps it should also give a reference to this Greenpeace article or even Unilever's own statement.
Strong, possibly biased remarks in Wikipedia articles need strong, independent references that clearly support those remarks. At the time of writing, this Google search lists ten more references that might help. Some are from eco sites, the others from business news sites.
Thanks for commenting and for tidying the section, it reads much better now. -- Chris Jefferies ( talk) 07:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
RFCecon tag removed following a further edit by Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ). The criticism section reads much better now. Thanks to anyone who helped with this. -- Chris Jefferies ( talk) 08:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
It has gone worse again, but now we also have CSR sections. I think this is all undue at best and more likely pov. I have tagged the section as POV, lets wait for response.
Arnoutf (
talk) 19:05, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
The image Image:LiptonRAKericho.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --03:23, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I think this article is quite promising, but I think the central section, which is currently filled by long, long lists, should be seriously considered. Remember wikipedia is not a catalog of Unilever brands. (For some obscure reason the listmania seems a very Dutch thing, as I have mainly encountered this on Netherlands related articles, or translations from Dutch wikipedia. Perhaps that style is widely accepted on Dutch wikipedia, but it is seen as undesirable here. So some translation between the Wiki cultures may be in place). Arnoutf ( talk) 15:09, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
The proposed merger of the Child Labour Issues of Unilever in India into this one is in my opinion not a good idea for several reasons.
Information about the 'heartbrand' has been removed from the article, and replaced with a link. But the link just redirects back here. What's up with that? 124.126.5.149 ( talk) 07:03, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Conopco redirects here, but there's no explanation in the article of what Conopco is. (A portmanteau of "CONsolidated OPerating COmpany", it's the operating subsidiary of Unilever United States.) Not sure where this would actually belong in the article. (I suspect it might actually make sense to have a separate ULUS article or section, since that division accounts for a lot of the company's history, and then Conopco could redirect there.) 18.26.0.5 ( talk) 02:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
I do NOT agree that this section is
WP:UNDUE and therefore I believe it should remain.
If you disgree, please explain why. (I might agree with you!) Thanks in advance,
Pdfpdf (
talk) 04:57, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Throughout 2012, Unilever contributed US$372,100 to a US$46 million dollar political campaign known as "The Coalition Against The Costly Food Labeling Proposition, sponsored by Farmers and Food Producers" <ref>http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/elections2012/propositions/prop-37-funding-genetically-engineered-food.html</ref> This organisation was set up to oppose a citizen's initiative, known as Proposition 37, demanding mandatory labelling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients. As a result, there is a growing boycott of Unilever's products across North America.<ref>http://anh-europe.org/news/anh-calls-for-international-boycott-of-prop-37-no-campaign-companies</ref>
Throughout 2012, Unilever contributed US$372,100 to a US$46 million dollar political campaign known as "The Coalition Against The Costly Food Labeling Proposition, sponsored by Farmers and Food Producers". This organisation was set up to oppose a citizen's initiative, known as Proposition 37, demanding mandatory labelling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients.<ref>http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/elections2012/propositions/prop-37-funding-genetically-engineered-food.html</ref> The vote was held on 6 November 2012, and Proposition 37 was defeated 53% to 47%.<ref>http://www.voxxi.com/prop-37-labeling-gmo/</ref><ref>http://anh-europe.org/news/anh-calls-for-international-boycott-of-prop-37-no-campaign-companies</ref>
This article reads like parts of it were written by Unilever itself. The tone is questionably neutral. Wuapinmon ( talk) 04:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
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)
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)
"The amalgamation of the operations of British soapmaker Lever Brothers ,William Hulme Lever and Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie, Anton Jurgens en Samuel van den Bergh, a merger as palm oil was a major raw material for both margarines and soaps and could be imported more efficiently in larger quantities." - This sentence in the History section is incoherent and needs to be rewritten. -- BenStrauss ( talk) 14:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
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)
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) -- 213.70.98.2 ( talk) 11:00, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
what does widely listed mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.195.185.125 ( talk) 06:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
If Unilever competes against Kraft Foods & Mars Inc., Why does Oreo, M&Ms and Snickers all use Breyers for their Ice Cream?
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)
The criticism section of the article now contains a strong condemnation of Unilever for destroying rainforest for palm oil production. A more balanced view might take account of statements like this one from Greenpeace. 'Unilever is supporting our call for a moratorium on the ground but even though they are the biggest buyer they represent only 3 per cent of the palm oil purchasers and the moratorium will need a lot more support from other companies before we see real change on the ground in Indonesia.' The paragraph is taken from the Greenpeace website.
See also articles by Mongabay, Industry Week, Ethical Corporation, and of course Unilever's remarks about its own track record may also have some relevance.
The quality of the article and the standing of Wikipedia both depend on achieving balance, ie NPOV. There seems to be a strange perception in the minds of some that a company view is bound to be partisan while the view of a pressure group is not. As a Unilever employee it's probably not advisable for me to do more than raise this on the discussion page. The same might be true for any member of a protest organisation. -- Chris Jefferies ( talk) 10:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
(RFCecon tag was here.)
Some of the material in the Criticism section may be inaccurate or PoV. As an employee of Unilever I do not wish to edit the article but would like others to consider the section and edit it if necessary.
The part that troubles me most is the claim, 'In Ivory Coast, too, Unilever is clearing forest for oil palm plantation'. Thanks for adding the fact tag, that's useful. It's a bold claim that is (I believe) POV and unsupportable. Let's see if the author can come up with a suitable reference.
The next sentence is also a cause for concern. To present as a fact, that Unilever is directly responsible for threatening an endangered primate species is entirely unsupportable, I think. Is the reference unbiased? If the article contains a reference to Wildvet.at perhaps it should also give a reference to this Greenpeace article or even Unilever's own statement.
Strong, possibly biased remarks in Wikipedia articles need strong, independent references that clearly support those remarks. At the time of writing, this Google search lists ten more references that might help. Some are from eco sites, the others from business news sites.
Thanks for commenting and for tidying the section, it reads much better now. -- Chris Jefferies ( talk) 07:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
RFCecon tag removed following a further edit by Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ). The criticism section reads much better now. Thanks to anyone who helped with this. -- Chris Jefferies ( talk) 08:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
It has gone worse again, but now we also have CSR sections. I think this is all undue at best and more likely pov. I have tagged the section as POV, lets wait for response.
Arnoutf (
talk) 19:05, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
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I think this article is quite promising, but I think the central section, which is currently filled by long, long lists, should be seriously considered. Remember wikipedia is not a catalog of Unilever brands. (For some obscure reason the listmania seems a very Dutch thing, as I have mainly encountered this on Netherlands related articles, or translations from Dutch wikipedia. Perhaps that style is widely accepted on Dutch wikipedia, but it is seen as undesirable here. So some translation between the Wiki cultures may be in place). Arnoutf ( talk) 15:09, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
The proposed merger of the Child Labour Issues of Unilever in India into this one is in my opinion not a good idea for several reasons.
Information about the 'heartbrand' has been removed from the article, and replaced with a link. But the link just redirects back here. What's up with that? 124.126.5.149 ( talk) 07:03, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Conopco redirects here, but there's no explanation in the article of what Conopco is. (A portmanteau of "CONsolidated OPerating COmpany", it's the operating subsidiary of Unilever United States.) Not sure where this would actually belong in the article. (I suspect it might actually make sense to have a separate ULUS article or section, since that division accounts for a lot of the company's history, and then Conopco could redirect there.) 18.26.0.5 ( talk) 02:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
I do NOT agree that this section is
WP:UNDUE and therefore I believe it should remain.
If you disgree, please explain why. (I might agree with you!) Thanks in advance,
Pdfpdf (
talk) 04:57, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Throughout 2012, Unilever contributed US$372,100 to a US$46 million dollar political campaign known as "The Coalition Against The Costly Food Labeling Proposition, sponsored by Farmers and Food Producers" <ref>http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/elections2012/propositions/prop-37-funding-genetically-engineered-food.html</ref> This organisation was set up to oppose a citizen's initiative, known as Proposition 37, demanding mandatory labelling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients. As a result, there is a growing boycott of Unilever's products across North America.<ref>http://anh-europe.org/news/anh-calls-for-international-boycott-of-prop-37-no-campaign-companies</ref>
Throughout 2012, Unilever contributed US$372,100 to a US$46 million dollar political campaign known as "The Coalition Against The Costly Food Labeling Proposition, sponsored by Farmers and Food Producers". This organisation was set up to oppose a citizen's initiative, known as Proposition 37, demanding mandatory labelling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients.<ref>http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/elections2012/propositions/prop-37-funding-genetically-engineered-food.html</ref> The vote was held on 6 November 2012, and Proposition 37 was defeated 53% to 47%.<ref>http://www.voxxi.com/prop-37-labeling-gmo/</ref><ref>http://anh-europe.org/news/anh-calls-for-international-boycott-of-prop-37-no-campaign-companies</ref>
This article reads like parts of it were written by Unilever itself. The tone is questionably neutral. Wuapinmon ( talk) 04:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)