• Ad Age, Monday, May 5, 2008 10:45 AM

High-profile stances on social causes can have unintended consequences as "ethical marketing" encourages consumers and activists to delve into corporate policies in ever-greater detail. Procter & Gamble and Unilever have become lightning rods, in part because of their stances on environmental and social issues.

Case in point: Unilever has scored at the top of global ethical and sustainability indexes in the past year. Its reward was to be labeled by Greenpeace, along with its global Dove agency, Ogilvy & Mather, and some UK PR firms as killers of Indonesian orangutans because it buys palm oil from former rain forests. "Most activists of whatever persuasion on whatever issue tend to believe that they get most traction (and news coverage) by aiming at the biggest name rather than the biggest challenge," says a Unilever spokeswoman.

The irony is that palm oil was supposed to be the benign alternative. P&G has been substituting it for oil derivatives in laundry detergents and touted a big contract for Indonesian palm oil in 2006. Unilever has also been using palm oil to replace widely reviled trans fats in margarine and other foods.

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