Moon Wars

Procter & Gamble fights back

One day around the year 1851, a Cincinnati wharf hand painted black crosses on boxes of Procter & Gamble candles so that illiterate workers could distinguish them. In time the cross became a star. Then a dozen more stars were added to signify the original 13 colonies, as well as a quarter moon with a human face, a popular image of the time. By 1882 the unusual logo had become Procter & Gamble's trademark.

Today the man-in-the-moon symbol appears on everything the mighty marketeer (1981 sales: $11.4 billion) makes, including Crest toothpaste, Jif peanut butter and a host of soap and detergent products. Lately, however, it has become a major corporate problem because of a virulent whispering campaign alleging that the logo is satanic and that Procter & Gamble is somehow involved in the worship of the devil. The talk first surfaced in January 1980, and reappeared two years later when the firm began getting thousands of phone calls about stories that company officials had confessed on the Phil Donahue and Merv Griffin television shows that Procter & Gamble and its top executives were supporting devil worship. There were never any such programs.

Procter & Gamble found that the latest rumors were being spread by Fundamentalist religious groups, mostly in the South. Several pastors had passed on the tales from their pulpits. Leaflets urging Christians to stop buying the company's products were being distributed in front of churches, schools and stores.

The company counterattacked by sending out a mailing to 48,000 Southern churches and enlisting the aid of religious leaders like the Rev. Jerry Falwell to deny the reports. Says Falwell: "The only way to stop this is for pastors to inform their congregations that the whole thing is a farce."

Earlier this month, Procter & Gamble took its strongest action. It filed defamation suits against three persons who allegedly spread the rumors and advocated a boycott of Procter & Gamble products: an Atlanta man who works for a grocery-products distributor and a Pensacola, Fla., couple who sell competing household goods door to door.

Said a Procter & Gamble spokesman: "Your first reaction is to laugh about it, but it has become such a major distraction to our organization that we have decided enough is enough. It's not funny any more." Although its sales have yet to be affected by the rumors, Procter & Gamble says it will file more lawsuits if the tales do not die down.