Colgate's Distateful Toothpaste

The mission statement for Colgate is “Our three fundamental values – Caring, Global Teamwork and Continuous Improvement – are part of everything we do.” (“Colgate world of,” 2011). Colgate presents products in the line of household and personal care such as laundry detergents, health care products and Hill pet food. The case, Colgate 's Distasteful Toothpaste, deals with ethical issues associated with Colgate’s repugnant toothpaste brand named Darkie. The term ethics refers to accepted principles of right and wrong that govern the conduct of a person, the members of a profession, or the action of an organization. Because it refers to accepted principles, these principles may change from country to country or from business to business. No two countries hold the same identical ethical values. Business ethics are the accepted principles of right and wrong governing the conduct or behavior of business people. According to the case at hand, the ethical issues arising are about the logo on the tooth paste “Darki” black man toothpaste. This is an ethical issue because the logo was very popular in the Asian market for years which meant that it was very well accepted and non-offensive in the market. But as soon as the word of such action was heard of in the US it was regarded as offensive and unacceptable. The argument was how in the world could this simple logo which had generated millions of dollars to the Colgate and Hawley and Hazel alliance be called offensive? The spokesperson from Hawley and Hazel pointed to the fact they had no problems because the market share was so high in Asia. It left a bad impression on the US consumers because culture was different. The trade mark or logo was singling out black people which were viewed as a form of racism by the US population. In the Asian community this was not a problem because there was not a large black population as compared to the US. In the US with the institution of slavery still fresh on

Bibliography: Colgate world of care. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate/US/Corp/LivingOurValues/CoreValues.cvsp