-Caveat Lector-
Tuesday May 4 8:09 AM ET
Amway Spread Satan Rumors, PG Claims In Court
By Jeff Franks
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Along with soap and vitamins, those friendly Amway
salesmen have been pushing something else for years -- false rumors
that rival Procter Gamble Co. is in league with the devil --
attorneys charged in opening arguments of a lawsuit Monday.
Procter Gamble lawyers said Amway Corp. had tried to take away sales
by fomenting the mistaken belief, prevalent in some religious circles,
that Procter Gamble's venerable trademark incorporated satanic
symbols such as the number ``666'' and devil's horns.
``They (Amway) know full well the malignant, cancerous effect of
associating someone with a satanic cult,'' Procter Gamble attorney
Mike Gallagher said. ``It incorporates everything that is bad and
nothing that's good.'' The lawsuit is the culmination of years of
bitterness between Procter Gamble and Amway, which has filed a
counter-suit charging that Procter Gamble is conducting a smear
campaign.
Procter Gamble attorneys said Amway might have encouraged the rumors
since they first surfaced in the 1970s. The lawsuit asks for $595
million in lost sales from 1995 to 1997, plus an unspecified amount
for damage to the company's reputation.
An attorney for direct marketer Amway denied the charges and said
Procter Gamble had sued because it was concerned about Amway's
strong sales growth in Asia.
The trademark, which dates back to the 1850s, shows a bearded ``man in
the moon'' looking over 13 stars, one for each of the original 13
American colonies.
Procter Gamble says the trademark ``remains an important company
identification'' but removed it in 1985 from the company's more than
300 products. These include such well-known brands as Tide laundry
detergent, Crest toothpaste, Ivory soap, Pampers disposable diapers
and Folgers coffee.
In an audio tape played in court Monday, an Amway distributor said in
an April 1995 voice mail to other distributors that Procter Gamble's
president had admitted on the Phil Donahue television show that a
percentage of the company's profits went to the ``Church of Satan.''
But Amway attorney Charles Babcock, who successfully defended talk
show hostess Oprah Winfrey against a 1998 lawsuit brought by Texas
livestock producers who said she had defamed beef, said Amway did not
approve of the distributor's message and had quickly ordered him to
send out a retraction.
``We've bent over backwards to help Procter Gamble stop this
rumor,'' he said.
Babcock said the Satanism rumors emanated not from Amway but from
religious groups unhappy about Procter Gamble's sponsorship of
controversial television programs. He charged that the company had
handled the problem badly from the beginning.
He showed a videotape of comedian David Letterman joking about the
rumors on his television show to make the point that the firm's
botched public relations efforts had spread the Satanism rumors far
and wide.
``They're not mad at us. They're mad at themselves, and they're trying
to blame us,'' Babcock said.
The real reason for the lawsuit, Babcock argued, was Procter
Gamble's concern that Amway was growing rapidly in Asia because of its
direct-sales strategy.
The company sells its 450 products through 3 million independent
distributors worldwide, not through stores, and is known as much for
its aggressive recruiting of new distributors as it is for its
products.
_
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