Retailing: From Blackface To Redface

For Colgate-Palmolive, the affair has been an embarrassing reminder that overseas investments must be made with care. In 1985 the Manhattan-based company bought 50% of Hawley & Hazel Chemical, a Hong Kong firm that has long sold a popular toothpaste in Southeast Asia. The only problem: the toothpaste package bore the smiling blackface image of Al Jolson, and the product's name was Darkie.

Last year Colgate-Palmolive's new brand came to the attention of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a Manhattan group that works with churches. When it protested to Colgate-Palmolive about Darkie, the firm did nothing to change the product for several months, contending that the label "was not offensive to Asians." But after continued pressure, the company finally promised "to eliminate any offensive implications." Now Colgate-Palmolive is testing revised package designs, including one using a young, modern, well-dressed black. Among the new names under consideration are Hawley and Darbie.