Blogs focus on Unilever reality show death
By Ria Sharma

Multi national Unilever dominates its markets in large parts of India, Pakistan and elsewhere.  Like other companies operating in the modern world, it strives to be a good corporate citizen and to give quality products at affordable prices. Local consumers love its products.  Now Unilever Pakistan stands accused of trying to cover up a reality show death.

Unilever International’s Non-Executive directors includes Indian tech icon Narayana Murthy.

Unilever proudly states: “With 400 brands spanning 14 categories of home, personal care and foods products, no other company touches so many people's lives in so many different ways. Its brands include Lipton, Dove and Omo. Unilever ice creams are sold in most parts of India and Pakistan. Despite the recession, last quarter it made a net profit of 833 million Euros.  Its huge advertising budget means that it has close links to traditional print and TV media. Advertisers carry clout with media organizations.

It all started when 32-year old Pakistani father of 4, Saad Khan, tragically lost his life in a reality show contest being filmed in Thailand. Pakistani blog Unchained reported “According to the details given by Unilever, the fateful challenge involved 4 participants to carry a 7kg weight on their backs across a pond. Saad reportedly drowned as he lost his balance. It is also reported that he suffered a cramp and could not stay afloat, and yelled for help before going down for the last time. It is to be noted that he was an excellent swimmer and had an athletic build of height 6'2".

Instead of publicly apologizing and making amends to the bereaved Pakistani family, respected Pakistani blogs are alleging that a handful of Unilever Pakistani executives tried to cover up using their strong commercial links with Pakistani media. 

The Wikipedia entry on Unilever says that “Unilever is alleged to have run a cover-up of the incident by resorting to scare tactics, flexing its government connections and buying power. Serious counter efforts were made against Farhan Janjua of Aarpix.com, who first broke the story. WebHostingPad suddenly issued Aarpix a short notice disabling his website for “nature of content”. They then told Farhan to quickly move his data with immediate effect or else they will delete his content [4 years of hard work]. Pakistan local news paper Dawn is also alleged to have shown inclination towards Unilever when it disabled the Obituary of the victim. It was later fixed and attributed to technical difficulties. Social networking and Blog sites who have reported this incident also are slowly being blocked.”

No mainstream Pakistani newspaper and TV stations seemed to be interested in reporting this.  Pakistani blog farrukhahmed.blogspot.com is reporting on how “GEO news went on air with Saad's news for the first time on 28th August at around 5 PST. The Head of Corporate affairs Unilever Pakistan (Farishtey Gati Aslam) spoke to Geo claiming this to be an accident. She said that the participants were given the option of wearing life jackets but Saad opted out of it. All safety measure were taken. She never spoke about the 7 kg bag which was fixed with each participant during this stunt, or the fact that none of the participants wore life jackets and the jackets were NOT mandatory. She also said on air that Unilever is also trying to compensate the family and is in touch with the family, friends etc. Please note that Farishtey Gati Aslam is the wife of Imran Aslam who is the CEO/President of GEO network.”

Hugely popular Pakistani blogs like teeth.com.pk have picked up the story. The new media are not hesitating in alleging that powerful traditional media organizations like Dawn and Geo have been sweet talked or arm twisted by the powerful Unilever Pakistan.

Even as the Pakistani newspapers and TV stations looked they other way, new media in the form of blogs, Facebook, Twitter have raised the issue into national consciousness. The Streisand affect was in play.

Only if Unilever Pakistan had done the right thing the very first day by offering sincere apologies and compensation to the family, this new media backlash could have been avoided.  By now cooler, saner Unilever heads in their European Headquarters would have stepped in trying to correct the wrongs done by a handful of their employees in Pakistan.