Unilever accidentally named its new soap line after Kim Jong Un, but the cosmetics company said the move was unintentional.
The soap and shower gel line called KJU was developed to entice millennials, but it wasn’t until later that someone with the company realized the initials also spelled out Kim Jong Un’s name.
“It was only after we trademarked it that I realized that it also stood for Kim Jong Un, but never mind,” Alan Jope, the company’s head of personal care, said at a meeting with investors Thursday.
Unilever did not realize the initials for its new product line also matched those of the rogue North Korean leader, but it’s a nickname sure to follow the product. If you google “KJU,” Kim Jong Un is one of the first results that comes up, and a search of “#KJU” on Twitter features stories about “Rocket Man” and his feud with President Trump.
The company has insisted that the KJU product line has no link to embattled North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
KJU was designed for urban millennials and is available in fragrances such as “Romancy Rosy.” Unilever is introducing the product line in China six months after starting work on it, Jope said.
Unilever has not yet to explained what KJU was supposed to represent, but here are some other things KJU stands for that aren’t the dictator of North Korea:
— Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, an organization of Muslim scholars formed in Kerala, India, in 1924
— Karaite Jewish University, an educational institution formed in California in 2005
— Kamiraba Airport in Papua New Guinea’s airport code is KJU
— Le KJU Restaurant in Switzerland
Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch company that was recently sold to a cosmetics company called Carver Korea for $2.7 billion. The KJU product line was developed after the sale.
