‘Explosive’ Look at a $30-Billion Goliath
If someone had suggested that I spend a weekend reading a book about Procter & Gamble, the soap-and-toothpaste maker, I would have laughed at the idea. But after a few pages of “Soap Opera” by Alecia Swasy, the hook was in deep.
Swasy, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, experienced the paranoia and the zeal of P & G firsthand when the Cincinnati-based company persuaded the local police and prosecutor to obtain three months’ worth of phone records--charting about 35 million calls--to find out which sources were dialing her home and office.
“Those who have spoken out against the company have been harassed and beaten,” she writes. “Security guards tail managers on business trips.” . . . “A report on the top medical claims by P & Gers shows that three of four top claims were stress-related, such as heart attacks.” But as one manager put it, “if you have a heart attack, you’re seen as not being strong enough.”
All this comes in only the first dozen pages of what Fortune magazine calls “without a doubt the most explosive business book of the year.”
The inside story of the world’s biggest advertiser--a $30-billion Goliath that makes Ivory soap, Crest toothpaste, Pampers disposable diapers, Tide detergent, Folgers coffee and dozens of other household staples--reads at times like a corporate version of “All the President’s Men.”
Swasy plays the Woodward-and-Bernstein role of breaking through a carefully built facade, detailing at one point how P & G ignored early warnings about its Rely tampons, which were linked to the sometimes fatal toxic-shock syndrome.
Swasy, whose jolly laugh belies her hard-bitten sleuthing, was cautioned by her editor when she started covering Procter & Gamble in 1988 that it was a difficult company.
“I was amazed at the obfuscation that goes on, day in and day out,” she recalled. “Getting simple information from the company proved to be a monumental task.”
At the head stands chief executive officer Edwin Artzt, a Nixonian figure who is portrayed as “The Prince of Darkness.”
During the next three years, before Swasy started work on the book, representatives constantly challenged the Wall Street Journal over her coverage.
“Basically, my interest was in writing about people who are affected by big business,” Swasy said. “I really had an interest in figuring out what really happens to people when they are on the receiving end of companies like P & G--and what it’s like to work there.”
Swasy writes with an outrage that the Wall Street Journal reserves for its editorial page.
Her publisher, Times Books, a division of Random House, sought to underscore the accuracy of her reporting by submitting the manuscript to an outside fact checker and a legal review conducted by Victor Kovner, the former New York City corporation counsel.
For P & G, which is shown in the book to exert obsessive control over the public portrayal of its image through a staggering $2-billion advertising budget, the publication of “Soap Opera” surely must chafe in a way that no amount of its Noxzema can soothe.
However, the company appears to be riding out the irritation, saying only that it is “a one-sided, inaccurate portrayal of the company and its actions. We’re known for the honest and ethical standards by which we conduct our business.”
Fortune’s review, written by a reporter who also has covered P & G for several years, sniffed that the book “seems a deeply biased account, packed with dubious generalizations.”
Although network TV broadcasts have not welcomed Swasy to discuss the media’s best advertiser--”I think there is a great deal of fear,” she said--interest in “Soap Opera” and good reviews have helped raise the number of copies in circulation from an initial printing of 60,000 to an even more robust 70,000.
Company employees in Cincinnati who would rather not be seen with the book are not helped by a dust-jacket design in eye-grabbing orange--just like the Tide box.
As for Swasy, she has since moved on to writing about rural and suburban America.
“I’m glad I’m not covering corporate America anymore,” she said.
No doubt P & G is glad too.
On the Racks
A book whose time has come: “The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook” (Villard), updated by National Lampoon founders Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf, reconstructs the language for these loath-to-offend times. For example, Amy Fisher is identified as “a former sex care provider who in 1992 became a guest of the correctional system.” . . .
* Margaret Thatcher’s “The Downing Street Years” (HarperCollins), the first installment in the former British prime minister’s memoirs, has arrived with a 914-page thud. First printing: 175,000 copies. . . .
* In a stroke of great timing, Esquire’s November issue contains a brief cover-story excerpt from Michael Jordan’s upcoming book, “Rare Air” (Collins Publishers), in which the suddenly-ex-Bull gets personal: “When I leave, it will be good-by, thanks, and, hopefully, we’ve all enjoyed each other along the way. You won’t see me around the game like my friend Magic Johnson . . . I’ll be gone.” . . .
* Inside Media reports in its issue out this week that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the publisher of TV Guide, is nearing a deal to buy TVSM Inc., Peter Diamandis’ company, which puts out two rivals--the Cable Guide and Total TV. The latter’s circulation would be folded into TV Guide, while the Cable Guide would continue to publish.
