Sometimes the media yields a pearl up on these fallow shores. NPR reported that Procter and Gamble won a lawsuit against some Amway dealers who claimed the P&G logo was satanic--
CINCINNATI: The world's largest consumer products company, Procter & Gamble Co., has won a jury award of $19.25 million (€14.5 million) in a civil lawsuit against four former Amway distributors accused of spreading false rumors linking the company to Satanism.
more on this story from the International Herald Tribune>>
The story details the case including "that Amway Corp. distributors revived those rumors in 1995, using a voice mail system to tell thousands of customers that part of Procter & Gamble profits went to Satanic cults". Don't you love it?
There were a bunch of Urban Legends on this from Snopes>>
Wikipedia details the legend>>
The company received unwanted media publicity in the 1980s when an urban legend spread that their previous corporate logo was a satanic symbol. The accusation is based on a particular passage in the Bible, specifically Revelation 12:1, which states: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Since P&G's logo consists of a man's face on a moon surrounded by thirteen stars, some have claimed that the logo is a mockery of the heavenly symbol alluded to in the aforementioned verse, and hence the logo is Satanic. Where the beard meets the surrounding circle, a mirror image of 666 can be seen when viewed from inside the logo, and this has been interpreted as the reflected number of the beast, again linked to Satanism. Also, there are two horns like a lamb that are said to represent the false prophet. These interpretations have been denied by company officials, and no evidence linking the company to the Church of Satan or any other occult organization has ever been presented.
As a logo designer...wow. I need to get to work embedding good stuff into my logos...intentionally.
I need to get to work on such important stuff!
More later>>