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My favourite legacy of Anita Roddick and The Body Shop: Ruby

  • 1.  My favourite legacy of Anita Roddick and The Body Shop: Ruby

    Posted 09-12-2007 12:52
    There is much that might not be liked about Anita
    Roddick and the Body Shop. But let's not throw out
    the baby boomer with the bathsalt. There were good
    times too.

    Here is my favourite legacy of Anita. The first link
    goes to her homepage the second shows a picture of
    Ruby as well as the fact that Mattel has good lawyers
    (and no sense of humor):
    http://www.anitaroddick.com/readmore.php?sid=13
    http://www.piercemattie.com/beautydivision/2006/10/the_body_shop_antibarbie_doll.html

    I assume Ruby was the ideagiver for Dove's campaign
    of "real" women which you can find on this site:
    http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/flat3.asp?id=2287&src=InsideCampaign_firming

    Whatever misgivings we can rightly have about the Body
    Shop's behaviour since the 90s we should not under-
    estimate the impact Antia Roddick has had by focalising
    societal issues and bringing them to a broad audience
    in the 1980s. Animal testing, fair trade, climate change
    were all not invented by her nor was her company the most
    pioneering in acting on them. However, through its
    (marketing) campaigns the Body Shop has transported
    the message to an audience far beyond the average
    Greenpeace supporter.

    Right! And now I will go home and take a Mango foaming
    bath in the memory of Anita Roddick, an imperfect yet
    remarkable human being who has touched and inspired the
    lives of a generation, which happens to be mine.