How is that for an attempt at alliteration. Burt’s Bees, which is a natural personal care company (most famous for its chapped lips products) is being bought by Clorox Inc. for $950 million US.

Adage.com has some interesting insight into Clorox’s plans…

For those who thing Big Bleach is a corporate evil, see what the folks at Burt’s Bees have to say about who now owns the hive:

As you’ve probably heard by now, we at Burt’s Bees are entering an exciting new chapter in our lives as a result of the recent sale of the company to The Clorox Company. It’s a great opportunity to help us better deliver against our mission of making truly natural personal products available to everyone, everywhere.

This new journey gives us the energy and the resources to do even more. Not only will we be able to accelerate our growth, but this will also help us to grow the natural personal care category in general, furthering our commitment to The Greater Good.

You can keep counting on Burt’s Bees in the ways you always have. We will always stay steadfast behind our values and commitment to making the best natural personal care products with the most environmentally sensitive packaging and nature-safe manufacturing processes. And, above all, we’ll continue on with our social mission to make people’s lives better every day, naturally.

It’s your desire to improve your well-being and the world around you that has given us the support to take this next step. We thank you and ask for your continued support so we can keep the Burt’s Bees hive buzzing.

The International Herald Tribune explores the interesting subject of lighting. More specifically, the article discusses the various options for energy and not energy efficient lighting and how compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) is likely to be the future winner, even though it does not give off ‘nice’ light.

One designer has threatened to wage war against them. Another reckons they’re so depressing that we’ll be driven into psychotherapy. A manufacturer describes them as “very unfriendly” and, even, “a little violent.”

The objects of their derision are compact fluorescent bulbs, otherwise known as CFLs, the miniaturized versions of fluorescent strip lights, which are touted as energy-efficient alternatives to the incandescent bulbs that have lit our homes for over a century. The problem is the quality of their light. “It’s completely indifferent and boring,” said the German lighting designer, Ingo Maurer (the one who thinks they’ll be a boon for shrinks). “They make you feel as though you’re waiting for a bus or a train at a desolate station.”

Judith Havermann writes in the Wilson Quarterly that “Women now hold half of all management jobs in America. Business books and magazines tout their superior leadership style. What’s really changing in the country’s corner offices?” Read on.

Wharton School of Business professor Joel Waldfogel, in his new book, tears into the prevailing notion that markets left alone will sort themselves out and can be left to the dynamics of the invisible hand.

In the prevailing view, markets allow everyone to get what they want, regardless of what others want — recalling Blockbuster Video’s “Go Home Happy” slogan — while allocation through government imposes what John Stuart Mill called a “tyranny of the majority” — that you get what you want only if the majority wants it. This stark distinction between markets and government, advanced by Milton Friedman in his book Capitalism and Freedom, has been the rationale behind letting markets decide a wide variety of questions for decades. But according to Waldfogel, the tyranny of the majority is also at work in many markets, benefiting some, harming others, and not always ending up promoting efficiency.

The tyranny of the majority — Waldfogel calls it “the tyranny of the market” — arises whenever two conditions hold. First, production entails substantial fixed costs; and second, preferences differ across groups of consumers. High fixed costs limit the number of products that markets can profitably offer, so that only large groups get appealing products. And when preferences differ across groups, then those not targeted — “preference minorities,” in Waldfogel’s words — are unable to go home happy.

The face of advertising of beauty care products is changing….

Shampoo advertising in Japan typically featured glamorous blondes praising imports from Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

From Bloomberg:

Four of the largest U.S. foundations, which have given a combined $131.8 million to rebuild Gulf Coast communities destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, say the effort is proving to be a slow and difficult slog, a new survey says.

While corporations focused most of their giving on immediate relief programs, foundations are supporting longer-range efforts to restore schools, libraries, health-care facilities and economic development.

“Those engaged in longer-term recovery and rebuilding activities felt that those efforts would require a lot more time — generally much longer than they had initially expected,” the New York City-based Foundation Center said in its report today.

The Associated Press (via the Globe and Mail) reports that there was a deadly mishap explosion at the development grounds for the crafts that will be used by Virgin Galactic for its space tourism offering. The explosion happened in the Mojave Desert back in July. I do not know about you, but I only heard about this yesterday.

…three technicians died and three others were critically injured while performing a routine cold-flow test of nitrous oxide that did not involve a rocket firing. The company, which has done the test numerous times before without a problem, uses the chemical as an oxidizer in its spaceship’s hybrid rocket motor.
…
Virgin Galactic did privately contact its prized customers known as founders, who have paid the full $200,000 to be among the first to experience four minutes of weightlessness.

Stephen Attenborough, Virgin Galactic’s astronaut liaison, reassured the founders in an e-mail that the accident’s impact on the first commercial spaceflights — expected in late 2009 or 2010 — will be “minimal” and that it was “business as usual.”

• -The first season of the NBC TV show Friday Night Lights is out on DVD. The notable point is that it comes with a money-back guarantee (via pop candy).

  -There has been a lot of talk about the rise of China as an economic beast (maybe, maybe too much talk). The American has an article that takes us back to when the US was in fear of Japan and its economic power (via arts & letters daily).

  -Looks like I missed this one - Sustainablebusiness published (a month ago) its top 20 sustainable businesses list, comprised of the top 20 publicly traded companies that make this world a better place.

  -Here is how to carve a life-sized skeleton pumpkin.

  -Aston Martin has something special coming in early 2008 - the DBS. You might remember it from Casino Royale.

The Toledo Blade reports that the city of Toledo, Ohio, in need of funds to replace its aging police car fleet, will be selling ad space on its cruisers for $15,000 a car. A few business have already signed up.

“We are probably going to go ahead and put the ads for these businesses on the left and right rear quarter panels of the new cars when they come in,” the chief said. “Hopefully, that appearance will drum up some business from the other places in the community.”

The force needs to replace its aging fleet. The chief says that of the approximately 140 marked vehicles, about 100 need to be replaced.

Chief Navarre said small departments, mostly in the South and West, have ads on their vehicles. Fire departments in other cities also have them, acting Toledo Fire Chief Mike Wolever said.

via autoblog

Pop over to Found in Mom’s Basement for a great collection of vintage ads.

Sustainablebusiness.com reports that PepsiCo. is purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs) to offset its electricity use in the U.S. PepsiCo. will be buying 1.1 billion killowat-hours, which is the equivalent of its annual usage.

PepsiCo now leads the following lists:

The Top 25 list, which recognizes the nation’s largest purchasers of green power. EPA partners are buying more than 8.9 billion kilowatt-hours kWh of green power annually, an increase of nearly 425% since the end of 2004.

EPA’s Fortune 500 Challenge, launched in late 2006, focuses on the collective green power purchases of eligible Fortune 500 companies with a goal of a combined total of more than five billion kWh of green power by the end of 2007. Johnson & Johnson, Nike and Applied Materials also moved up in the challenge as a result of increased purchases, and Baxter Health Care corporate headquarters found its first ranking in the challenge.

The new “100 Percent Green Power Purchaser” list, which features organizations that are buying enough green power to meet 100 percent of their organization-wide purchased electricity use. This list includes more than 300 partner organizations demonstrating environmental leadership — from the largest corporations and government entities, down to some of the smallest organizations and businesses in the United States.

Plans are in place for select 7-Eleven outlets to be converted into Kwik-E-Marts to promote the Simpsons movie.

Customers also will be able to buy products inspired by the nearly two-decades-old show, including KrustyO’s cereal, Buzz Cola and iced Squishees (the cup says Squishee, but the contents will be Slurpee).

The chain also will use pictures of Simpsons characters to promote 7-Eleven’s line of fresh foods, such as placing the face of Homer and his classic “Mmmm . . . sandwich” quip on sandwich wrappers.

via Pop Candy

The announcement that Halliburton, the Houston, Tex.-based oil services company, was moving its headquarters to Dubai may have surprised many Americans. But for people in Dubai, it simply ratified decades of hard work.

With scant oil reserves, Dubai’s ruling family, the Maktoums, long ago realized that their state’s future lay in serving as the commercial hub of the Arab Middle East, not pulling petroleum from the desert sands. “They have had to live on their wits,” says Bulent Gultekin, a Wharton finance professor. “So they’ve tried to build Dubai into the business platform for the region.”

Read on here.

Wal-Mart is going to measure its electronics suppliers on a sustainability score card.

The scorecard will evaluate electronics on energy efficiency, durability, upgradability, end-of-life solutions, and the size of the package containing the product. Products will also be evaluated on their ability to use innovative materials that reduce the amount of hazardous substances, such as lead and cadmium, contained in the product. The end result is a score that shows suppliers where improvements can be made and allows Wal-Mart to evaluate the environmental sustainability of the product.

From Inhabitat:

As suppliers are encouraged to become more sustainable, Wal-Mart is continuing with its own sustainability initiatives in its Electronics Network. In February, Wal-Mart co-hosted a series of electronic waste (e-waste) “Take Back” days. Together with Hewlett-Packard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Wal-Mart collected more than 140,000 pounds of old electronics for recycling from residents in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. In addition to the Take Back days, Wal-Mart offers year- round in-store recycling of cell phones and ink cartridges and encourages customers to buy energy efficient products.

via Inhabitat

Brand New is a blog with a smart idea - tracking the re-branding of corporate logos and their design. Moreover, it also parses out the corporation’s rationale from their press releases so that we can really understand how the new logo will be alter the course of history and improve said corporation’s fortune. At least that is what the marketing-speak would have us believe. Take for example the rebranding of Dairy Queen.

More than once the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” adage applies to the logos we review on this site. But I think this one takes the crown for the least broken with the worst fixin’. Dairy Queen’s ellipse is one of the most highly recognizable marks, it is (was) unique, memorable and impactful. Despite this equity, Dairy Queen considered it was time to change and make the wrong moves in all the wrong places — from the press release: “The traditional logo is the foundation for the new one, a more symmetrical ellipse enhanced with gold and blue curved swishes signifying food and treats. The DQ lettering also has been updated to a font that is more current, adding greater personality.” The new mark has melted into a generic cacophony of unrelated forms (swishes! Italics! Bold!) and colors… Actually, in that respect, the new mark is the equivalent of Dairy Queen’s famous Blizzard treats: A jumbly mess.

Porsche AG is taking steps to increase it stake in Volkswagen AG to 31 percent, which will give it effective control of the company and put it in a position to trigger a buyout of the company.

As interesting as this news item is to automotive industry watchers and others, the above linked to article, which is Bloomberg’s article on this deal, contains this nugget of history:

Ferdinand Piech, whose family controls Porsche and whose grandfather started up Volkswagen in the 1930s under Adolf Hitler, has increased his control over Volkswagen since Porsche bought a stake a year and a half ago. A combination would realize the Porsche family’s goal of uniting two carmakers their relatives began and would be the largest takeover ever in the industry.

I pause to think of what a significant step backwards it must be for Porsche AG to have a connection to Hilter pointed out in the context of today’s corporate activity, especially given that we are taking about a take over.

A smart editorial discussion over at WorldChanging on the subject of the debated benefits of microlending:

An interesting debate about the efficacy of microfinance has been going on lately, pitting development experts and economists against one another as they seek to understand the impact of microfinance on economic growth and well-being.

The whole thing started with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. In it, Amar Bhide and Carl Schramm argue that microenterprise, fueled by microfinance, is less good than a “transformative entrepreneurship” enabled by policy reform. Their basic point is that everyone is not cut out to be an entrepreneur, and that simple access to finance is not enough - people need jobs, and to create jobs countries need better business environments.

Frank Abagnale Jr., who’s life story was featured in the movie Catch Me If You Can, is now working to catch today’s breed of tech-based fraudsters.

Indeed, Abagnale — who today runs a highly successful security consulting firm out of Tulsa, Okla. — works hard to keep up with today’s computerized and Internet-based fraud. But instead of perpetrating elaborate scams, for more than three decades Abagnale has worked to prevent them as an advisor on theft prevention for both the FBI and a roster of corporate clients.

He never lacks for work, especially in the Internet age. “Technology tends to breed cons, and it always will,” he said. “There are always people willing to use technology in a negative, self-serving way.”

Kenneth Shropshire knows sports. He is director of Wharton’s Sports Business Initiative, president of the Sports Lawyers Association, a former executive with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, and a football player during his undergraduate days at Stanford. He has written The Business of Sports; In Black and White: Race and Sports in America, and Basketball Jones: America Above the Rim. His newest book is titled, Being Sugar Ray: The Life of Sugar Ray Robinson, America’s Greatest Boxer and First Celebrity Athlete. He spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about why he wrote the book and what impact Sugar Ray Robinson has had on sports, society, race relations and business.

Read the article and interview here.

After years of economic struggle, recession and setbacks, Japan’s economy seems to be recuperating. Bloomberg reports that in the fourth quarter, Japan’s major companies increased their spending and thus continue to drive growth.

Investment surged 16.8 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31, the Ministry of Finance said in a quarterly survey of companies today, the fastest increase since the government started tracking the figure in 2002. Profits rose 8.3 percent from a year earlier.

Spending on factories and equipment by companies including Toyota Motor Corp. contributed to about half of Japan’s growth in 2006, offsetting weak consumer spending at home. The pace of growth means the fourth quarter’s gross domestic product figures may be revised higher, helping to validate last month’s decision by the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates.

“GDP will be revised” to show annualized fourth-quarter growth of 5.1 percent from the preliminary estimate of 4.8 percent, said Jesper Koll, chief economist at Merrill Lynch & Co. “It is a trigger point for the Bank of Japan to normalize interest rates a little more aggressively.”