Soap Opera : The Inside Story of Procter & Gamble

Rating:
Summary: "A Thoroughly Nasty Business Concern"
Review: "Soap Opera" recounts what one hopes to be, though perhaps optimistically, a particularly bad period in the history of one of America's largest corporations, Procter & Gamble in the '80s and early '90s, when led by succeeding CEOs John Smale and Ed Artzt, the company ran afoul of environmental laws, consumer safety, common sense, and basic human decency in truly arrogant fashion. To read the story comprehensively laid out by Alecia Swasy is to gape in astonishment at the true measure of human depravity in search of the holy buck.

Does Swasy have it in for P&G? Yeah, but so would you if you were a journalist and your subject was breaking the law to trample on your rights while you tried to do your job. Things got so out of hand as P&G launched telephone record investigations and had ex-employees brought to Cincinnati police stations to explain why they were talking to a reporter, that the ensuing coverage sparked a national outcry. Pundits and cartoonists weighed in about the KGB tactics of people who make laundry detergent and toothpaste. When finally brought to heel by indignant shareholders, CEO Artzt shrugged and called it a mistake. "The only thing he regretted," Swasy writes, "was getting caught."

Swasy was clearly embittered by her experience, and when her narrative flies into polemical flourishes, as in the Epilogue ("[Critics] refuse to buy the Ivory-pure image so carefully cultivated by P&G's years of marketing. We should all do the same"), the book is poorer for it. She does a great job describing, through the voices of mostly anonymous insiders, the noxious work environment of P&G for its employees (and you don't have to be a "Proctoid" to relate to the Dilbert-in-the-Death-Star picture she paints), then editorializes on how P&G advertising nurtures enduring cultural "myths" about a woman's place being in the home. Frankly, this latter angle comes up lame. P&G advertising reflected the culture for years, it sold product, and it has been adjusted to fit contemporary mores, as Swasy notes (just not enough for her liking.) I don't know whether it's so awful the role of the female was once rather more rigidly defined than it is now, but dumping much of the blame on P&G's doorstep seems excessive. Marketing to lesbian soccer Moms in the 1940s would probably have not helped P&G achieve its present level of success.

Where Swasy's book is strongest is the account of Rely, the tampon whose ingredients could cause toxic shock, and were directly responsible for the deaths of several women in 1979-80. Despite the accumulation of evidence, P&G went forward with its marketing. As recounted in a chapter of the book "Guerrilla Marketing") that should be required reading in corporate ethics classes, CEO Smale even planned to roll out a deodorant version of Rely while his underlings worked to silence researchers (mostly successfully) with generous grant money. The chapter is particularly good when it recounts how one trial lawyer and a bereaved husband he represented forced P&G to pay ridiculously low damages and put needed heat on the effort to establish P&G's culpability. Never mind, though. Swasy reveals later on that P&G's lab boys were concurrently doping out how to add the same toxic chemical to diapers.

There are other good chapters on P&G's arrogant practices overseas, its inept handling of domestic retailers (not just the small fry but WalMart, too!), and its stranglehold on a Florida community living around a river P&G polluted. Sometimes, as with the Florida case, Swasy seems too eager to embrace anything the critics dish out, and her noting the death of the P&G snack food Pringles [as of the book's publication in 1994] appears in retrospect to have been premature.

But overall, "Soap Opera" is a solid addition to business journalism. Books like this one only make you look a little deeper than your coupon stash in thinking about what products you buy. And that's a good thing.

Rating:
Summary: Horrendous Company
Review: I always thought that P&G was a horrible company because they refuse to stop animal testing, but after reading this book I am certain that P&G is a horrendous company.
P&G started out as a small company, giving people steady employment even through the Great Depression. The people who worked there felt that they were respected and believed they had a job for life. Unfortunately that wasn't to be. Working at P&G soon became a nightmare for a lot of people, especially women and minorities. Women were discouraged from wearing skirts, even during off hours because management wanted them to avoid showing skin. Employees actually had to get their hair cut when their boss thought it was a bit long. No personal items were allowed at your desk and one former worker was even scolded for "not walking fast enough"
P&G was and still is notorious for its blatant sexist ads. Women were made to feel guilty if her family's clothes weren't white or the dishes weren't sparkling. In the 70's, P&G introduced Rely tampons, made of super absorbent fibers. What they failed to tell people, was that they were made with cancer causing agents. At one point P&G was receiving 177 complaints a month, but still did nothing. Women were dying from Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) but P&G still assured people that their products were safe. Even knowing this, P&G continued their plan to support Rely and build its share to leadership status.
P&G doesn't seem to care who it hurts, just as long as their products are dominating the market.

Rating:
Summary: why is this out-of-print? Did P&G buy up all of the copies?
Review: I read this book in 4 days. This was such a good read and it also helped me to realize that 95% of homes in America and abroad have this company's products in them. That scares me because they have such a blatent disregard for human life and preserving it. I will never use P&G products ever again in my home. Please use this book to wake up to corporate money hungry companies like P&G. Really sad that most americans don't have a clue what kind of company's products they are using.

Rating:
Summary: Great informative read on a very unreliable company.
Review: I read this book in 4 days. This was such a good read and it also helped me to realize that 95% of homes in America and abroad have this company's products in them. That scares me because they have such a blatent disregard for human life and preserving it. I will never use P&G products ever again in my home. Please use this book to wake up to corporate money hungry companies like P&G. Really sad that most americans don't have a clue what kind of company's products they are using.

Rating:
Summary: Good Read, But She Missed Some of the Dirt
Review: I was a Proctoid for nearly 8 years and can personally confirm some of the stories Swasy relates.

The only weakness of the book is that she misses some of the dirt (the prostitution ring busted the same week as the drug ring at Sharon Woods Technical Center, for example) and some of the weaknesses of the company (low pay among technical people, driving out experienced people to bring in legions of temps with no loyalty to the company, and much more).

Procter isn't unique in its problems, but if they are not addressed honestly and in a timely fashion, in the long term, the company is in trouble. This 'elephant' does not dance, and they cannot go on buying good companies and running those brands into the ground while gutting research and innovation in-house.

Rating:
Summary: It's incredible
Review: It's incredible how the author of this book is so biased; she is totally against P&G and her rage is obvious. One can easily deduct that she is using all her journal power to revenge of something. She quotes opinions of some employees who couldn't get a hold with their strong corporate culture and the few examples she gaves reflect the "truth" of 100,000+ employees worldwide. Where is the good side of the company? It is incredible how unfair this book is and how you can get the bad feeling of the author since the first page.

Rating:
Summary: Are they all doing the same practice?
Review: Since our life is short, one way to learn and to know more is reading other people's life and company's history. I find big firms building image, brand and products in order to get people's money. Therefore, they all have to protect image and recoup the investment. SO that is the ultimate goal, build the name, compete in the market, get the money, grow the business, make sure the numbers look great--if ends justify means, people and companies will keep doing this. It is no different from what famous people or politicians do . This shouldn't surprise anyone. We see it everyday but rarely that someone will actually write it down without getting sued. It would be interesting to read more about other big firms to see if they are the same.
I like the Chinese saying that, 'if you don't want people to know, just don't do it'.
It's a good reading,

Rating:
Summary: "A Thoroughly Nasty Business Concern"
Review: The following statement, from the preface to C. S. Lewis's "The Screw Tape Letters" could serve as a trenchant summary of all that Ms. Swasy has to say about Procter & Gamble:

"The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern."

Rating:
Summary: The worst peice of trash ever
Review: This book is out of rint for one reason, it is terrible. I am no lover of big companies but the author is so biased in this book it is hard to believe anything she says. She blames P&G for the destruction of the environment, mistreating employees, the role of women in society and racism. P&G has done many things wrong, most big companies have, but it is not the cause of the fall of Western society.