Clorox

The Clorox Company is a household cleaning products maker, best known for its bleach. It also makes laundry and cleaning products such as Formula 409, Pine-Sol, and Tilex. Other products are cat litter Fresh Step, car care products Armor All and STP, charcoal briquettes under the Kingsford brand, Glad storage bags, and the food products Hidden Valley dressing and KC Masterpiece sauce.

Sierra Club and "Green Works"
In January 2008, Clorox announced a deal with the Sierra Club whereby the company could "use the Sierra Club's name and logo to market a new line of non-chlorinated cleaning products called 'Green Works.' In return, Clorox Company will pay Sierra Club an undisclosed fee, based partly on product sales," reported Peter Montague. Sierra Club's director of Licensing & Cause-Related Marketing, Johanna O'Kelley, has said "the amount of money involved is 'substantial.'" Sierra executive director Carl Pope has written that "our focus was on consumers who otherwise would not migrate to a safer product because they wouldn't be sure it wasn't green scamming."

The tension within the Sierra Club came to a head in late March 2008, when, in an unprecedented move, the "Sierra Club's national board voted March 25 to remove the leaders of the Club's 35,000-member Florida chapter, and to suspend the Chapter for four years." The Florida chapter was reportedly "highly critical" of the Clorox deal. The Sierra Club told chapter leaders not to "seek public media coverage of this internal board decision," according to the Palm Beach Post. Some chapter leaders said "they fear punishment from the national organization" if they speak out.

Repositioning as a "health and wellness brand"
In 2005, Clorox began to "position itself as a health and wellness brand," reported the Wall Street Journal. Key to the campaign were television ads with "images like a young girl pretending to be a mermaid or a young boy imagining himself as a pirate. Both of the kids are standing in pristine bathrooms that were apparently cleaned with Clorox products."

In March 2008, Clorox released versions of songs used in these ads as an album titled, "The Blue Sky Project: A Clorox Charity Collection." "Clorox's advertising agency, the San Francisco office of DDB, a unit of Omnicom Group Inc., worked closely with music houses that specialize in songs for ads to develop the right full-length songs, and a DDB artist created the album cover. ... Tarang Amin, Clorox's vice president of global franchise, said the campaign, including the music, has helped sales of Clorox brand products triple since the campaign started in 2005."

Ad boycott against Air America Radio
Clorox refused to advertise on the progressive Air America Radio. In October 2006, around 90 companies, including Clorox, told ABC Radio Networks that they did not want their ads to play on radio stations that carried Air America Radio.

Draft Ketchum PR Plan for Clorox leaked
In 1991 Greenpeace International was campaigning against the use of chlorine in the pulp and paper industries due to its toxic pollution problems. This campaign caused the huge US chlorine producer, Clorox to have the Public Relations division of Ketchum Communications draft a crisis management plan based on the assumption that Greenpeace would target the household use of chlorine.

In one of many scenarios canvassed, Ketchum pondered what to do in response to a hypothetical newspaper column calling for a boycott of Clorox products and Greenpeace pickets in front of supermarkets in 10 major cities. One component of a suggested action plan was "Industry association advertising campaign: 'Stop Environmental Terrorism' calling on Greenpeace and the columnist to be more responsible and less irrational in their approach".

Animal testing.
Clorox does animal testing.

Clorox statement on animal testing.
Consumer & animal welfare

Political contributions
Clorox gave $28,000 to federal candidates in the 2006 election through its political action committee - 54% to Democrats and 46% to Republicans.

Personnel
Selected members of the Board of Directors:
 * Richard H. Carmona, Former Surgeon General of the United States
 * George Harad, Retired Executive Chairman of the Board of OfficeMax
 * Robert W. Matschullat, Director of The Walt Disney Company
 * Pamela Thomas-Graham, Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CNBC

Contact details
1221 Broadway Oakland, CA 94612 Phone: 510-271-7000 Fax: 510-832-1463 Web: http://www.thecloroxcompany.com

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SourceWatch articles.

 * Sierra Club
 * Animal testing