Organisation: Body Shop / L'Oreal

Click here for full-size graph

Analysis and commentary by Echo Research. This article and further information is at: www.echoResearch.com

If Dame Anita Roddick hoped the media would share her enthusiasm for the £652m sale of the Body Shop to L'Oreal, she must be disappointed. Despite her protestations that she was not selling out the Body Shop, with its " campaigning, being maverick, changing the rules of business" (Independent, 19/3) mix of brand and ethics, many commentators were taken aback by its unlikely marriage with a global conglomerate. " It's surprising that you suddenly decide to drop your knickers and leap into bed with a big butch male corporation whose philosophy … represents everything you abhor" (Janet Street-Porter, Independent, 19/3). Others were sceptical about L'Oreal's motives: " Oh Anita, it's not worth it" sighed the Sunday Times, (19/3), hinting that L'Oreal was less interested in learning about community trading than ticking the CSR box on its to-do list. Not helping matters was the windfall the Roddicks will receive from the sale: "£118m … because I'm worth it"(Daily Record, 18/3); "No blushes as Roddicks take L'Oreal's £650m" (Western Daily Press, 17/3).
Yet Dame Anita is used to confounding expectations, and her insistence that " L'Oreal is willing to change" (Independent, 19/3) may prove correct. If she succeeds in ending animal experimentation by one of the world's biggest cosmetics companies, then it may indeed have been worth it.