Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Buying Social Responsibility and/or Cool

First it was L'Oreal buying the Body Shop, then Colgate/Palmolive buying Tom's of Maine. Now Dell is buying Alienware. I guess next Holiday Inn will be buying the Kimpton chain.

This really isn't as odd, I suppose, as some of us would like to think. It's not like the people that started the Body Shop or Tom's ddn't want to make money. And the Roddicks have only been minority owners of the Body Shop for the last few years after having sold much of their holding in the company. And the Alienware guys have been selling their stuff through Best Buy, thereby losing some of the cache that they had. But it's still an odd thing.