Perhaps your face has been half-buried in a pint of Chunky Monkey for so long that you didn’t even realize that Ben & Jerry’s stores sort of resemble Ye Olde Soda Shoppe gone cheesy — bright colors, checkered floors, and cheerful colors all summoning up the image of, well, a children’s playground. That’s how the brand director tells it, and is the main reason behind a new remodel that will seek to sleekify Ben & Jerry’s retail shops instead of peddle ice cream with cartoons and cows. [More]
unilever
Vaseline Lip Therapy Is ‘Advanced’ So It Will Come Out Of A Tube
By 8.19.13
We had a very simple question for Unilever. If petroleum jelly or petrolatum has basically been the same stuff since the 19th century, and Vaseline Lip Therapy is 100% petrolatum, why does the tube claim that it’s “advanced”? This is not a terribly pressing consumer question, but it bothered reader Will. So we contacted Vaseline’s slippery headquarters to find out. [More]
School Asks Teens To Lay Off The Axe Body Spray After Student Suffers Severe Allergic Reaction
By 3.21.13
Anyone who’s ever smelled Axe Body Spray or any Axe products probably has their own opinion on the scent of the stuff, so we shall refrain from voicing ours, but for one teenager in Pennsylvania, it wasn’t just that he didn’t like the smell. He had such a bad physical reaction to the scent that he had to go to the hospital, prompting his high school to ask other students to refrain from dousing themselves in it. [More]
New Breyers Recipes: When Ice Cream Is 'Frozen Dairy Dessert'
By 9.11.12
When is ice cream not ice cream? When it’s a “frozen dairy dessert.” Recently, Breyers made changes to some of their ice cream flavors. These changes were drastic enough that the products are still tasty, but can no longer legally be called “ice cream.” Do most consumers know the difference, or even care? We don’t know yet, but observant Consumerist tipsters noticed the label change, and they noticed the growing list of unfamiliar ingredients in a familiar food. [More]
Market Researchers Want To Literally Read Your Mind
By 7.16.12
People lie. What we want isn’t always what we say we want. This poses a problem for marketers, who depend on market research before launching new or redesigned products. Researchers have learned that people in focus groups tend to tell the authority figures running the test what they think the tester wants to hear. They say that they’re interested in products without considering whether they would actually buy them. They say that something draws their eye when it really doesn’t. Fortunately, technology has caught up with our lies. Market researchers can now track subjects’ retinas to see what products really draw their eye, analyze barely perceptible involuntary facial expressions, and even monitor brain waves to see which choices elicit happy thoughts. [More]
Hey, Where Are The Chocolate Chips In My Klondike Bar?
By 8.18.11
There’s a new flavor of Klondike Bar on the block: mint chocolate chip. That’s wonderful news for fans of mint chocolate chip ice cream, but also slightly confusing. Because there aren’t actually any chocolate chips in the bars, even though they’re pictured on the package and their ingredients listed on the product’s ingredients list. Where did they go? [More]
Is This Dove Body Wash Ad Racist Or Just Poorly Executed?
By 5.24.11
It’s easy to get all abuzz and up in arms and other angry, huffy things when the Internet can show you a billion things a day, but is this one of those things worthy of a tirade, or is it just a thoughtless, not so smart ad layout? So we posit the question: “Is This Racist?”, Dove Body Wash edition. [More]
Want Prettier Armpits? New Dove Deodorant Can Help
By 3.31.11
.Ladies of Consumerist, have you ever been concerned about how attractive your armpits are? Yeah, me either. But someone out there apparently does, and Unilever’s Dove brand now has a deodorant/antiperspirant for her. One that includes moisturizers that give you a “piticure,” and give women one more body part that apparently is never pretty enough. One ad for the product declares that “nearly 100% of women” find their underarms unattractive. [More]
Some Skippy Peanut Butter Recalled Over Possible Salmonella Contamination
By 3.7.11
The folks at Unilever, with a little help from the FDA, have announced a recall of certain jars of Skippy Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter Spread and Skippy Reduced Fat Super Chunk Peanut Butter Spread, because these products may be contaminated with everyone’s favorite pathogen, Salmonella. [More]
FDA Warns Canada Dry, Lipton Against Making Health Claims On Green Tea Drinks
By 9.8.10
Canada Dry and Lipton have been yellow-carded by referees at at Food and Drug Administration, who have warned the beverage makers of making unauthorized nutrient claims on their green tea drinks. [More]
Unilever's Insensitive Solutions For Customers With Sensitive Skin
By 8.11.10
Unilever is a massive conglomerate that sells a huge variety of products, but you can’t get that big and successful without listening to your customers’ needs. Right? Alissa tells Consumerist that she recently learned how close attention the company pays to customer complaints when she complained about the sudden addition of fragrance to a product marketed to people with sensitive skin. The company took two days to send a response that might as well have been written by a robot, and made it clear that no one even read her complaint–let alone cared about it. [More]
Big Brother Is Watching You — And He Has Ice Cream!
By 6.21.10
If you happen to be going to Cannes this summer (and, really, if you aren’t, you should be) mega-conglomerate Unilever is ready to tempt you with a treat straight out of Minority Report. The company has set up a vending machine that lets anyone who walks by score some free ice cream. The price? Just smile for the machine’s facial recognition software, which will determine your age, gender and emotion. Only the most happy will get ice cream. The rest? We don’t really know, but we seem to remember something having to do with stolen eyeballs that can be used to trick such systems. [More]
Unilever's Opt-Out Page Thinks It's A Tax Form
By 3.31.09
We’ll give Unilever points for offering an exhaustive opt-out page that covers every conceivable form of communication you may be receiving from them. We’ll take all those points away, however, and award them a fail badge for creating the world’s longest, most labor intensive opt-out page you’ve ever seen.
Three-Pound Tubs Of Country Crock: Now 3 Oz Lighter!
By 4.19.08
Country Crock’s three-pound vats of fat are now three ounces lighter, but you can’t tell by looking at the packaging. The crock-purveyor Unilever claims that the adjustment was made not to ensure optimal profitability, but to “ensure optimal consumer satisfaction.”
