Nestlé – what can brands learn from this fiasco
Submitted by Jaime on March 22, 2010 – 4:45 pm10 Comments
Nestlé might be in the middle of a PR crisis thanks to Greenpeace, but some of its biggest issues this week have come from its response through social media.
Last week Greenpeace launched a full-on attack on Nestlé’s KitKat brand by creating a somewhat shocking video and website highlighting its concerns over how the chocolate bar’s maker sources palm oil.
What can or must we learn from this?
Below is a great post from Scott Gould who is one of the UK’s finest social media thinkers. Scott kindly gave me the permission to repost on SocialGloo.
The 7 Things Nestlé Should’ve Done
The latest Social Media disaster happened last week as Nestlé got literally slammed on Facebook. Here’s how it happened, what lessons we can glean, and what Nestlé should’ve done:
1. A Social Media presence doesn’t inherently fix your offline problems and perceived questionable ethics.
It began with a Greenpeace campaign attacking Nestlé who are pupportedly purchasing palm oil from companies that destroy rainforests. Greenpeace created a video (which is sitting on their homepage) that rebranded the popular Nestlé chocolate bar brand, Kit Kat, into ‘Killer’, with the slogan ‘give the orang-utan a break.’
Nestlé asked YouTube to pull the video under copyright infringement, but the video had already gone viral. The summary in this comment by alecast gives an excellent and succinct order of events.
Takeaway: Be prepared for Social Media to amplify offline opinion.
2. People don’t mind if you don’t get it right, but they do mind if you get it wrong.
Mass protest then began on Nestlé’s Facebook page, which as you can imagine, quickly became swamped with not only outrage against their use of this palm oil, but also their pulling of the video.
As the Facebook hate piled in, Nestlé updated their Facebook page to reflect the sentiment of ‘we’re still learning’. As much as people say that it’s ok to get it wrong, in the Social Media mob’s eyes, it isn’t.
Takeaway: Like Eurostar, if you don’t have all the answers, people don’t care about your reasons. Have the answers ready.
3. Do Not Censor
Censoring the video in the first place is what exacerbated this war. People started making the Killer logo their profile picture, at which point Nestlé repeated the intial mistake by issuing the following update on Facebook:
please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic – they will be deleted.
The Streisland effect is used to describe the phenomenon when censorship causes something to become even more widespread. Don’t do it. And especially don’t do it twice. The net is at such a place that whatever you delete is pretty retrievable – and even if it isn’t – the whole thing with mass protest is that it is based in perception far more than reality. Censoring fuels this emotion.
Takeaway: Had Nestlé not censored, this would not have reached this size. Don’t censor.
4. Old Media Does Not Understand Social Crisis Management
Old Media thinks that removing a comment because the user’s profile picture is infringing and damaging your brand is the way to go.
Old Media is stupid. Old Media doesn’t consider that digital and social means will make two profile pictures spring up in the place of every deleted one. And Old Media doesn’t understand that text is more powerful than images when it comes to Google search and Facebook comments.
Even worse is telling users you will delete their comments – as if that will make people stop. If they were so concerned about their brand, they should’ve deleted the comments without telling anyone.
Takeaway: Social Crisis Management never takes the form of censorship or editing. It takes the form of creating new solutions.
5. Do Not Retaliate
The biggest mistake Nestlé made was by the person running the Facebook page who appeared to take every criticism personally. Just scan through this screenshot on this post.
Retaliation also invokes the Streisland effect.
Takeaway: Nestlé should’ve not responded to anything. Nothing they could say would make it right anyway, so rather say nothing.
6. The Truth Doesn’t Matter: Perception Does
Nestlé issues a press release on Wednesday, “assur[ing] you than Nestlé does not buy palm oil from the Sinar Mas Group”
It’s irrelevant – whether true or false.
When you get it wrong be censoring and retaliating, you reinforce the perception that you are trying to cover your tracks.
Takeaway: Don’t focus on facts, focus on perception.
7. Respond With The Same Weight
A press release does not combat screaming hatred against a brand. You must match fire with fire. The only way Nestlé can turn this around is to carry out something that has the same weight as the criticisms and viral nature that attacked it.
Takeaway: You cannot respond with traditional methods. You must match viral protest with viral solutions.
Conclusion
All of this, in my opinion, was Nestlés terribly misguided attempts at managing crisis through censorship of reach. Crisis management of spreadability is totally different.
When creating a Crisis Management process, you must never censor. You must create. Simply because spreadability requires us to create new media, as you cannot censor what has already been spread!
You can read a great summary from start to finish of what happened here.
Do you have any more points to add?
Great post and especially your point about perception being reality. I see this constantly in my work with building (or rebuilding) trust, integrity and reputation. Toyota is a good example. In their philosophy of a good defense is a strong offense, they are creating a situation where they are choosing to fight back-which only makes the situation worse. In the court of public opinion, they are guilty. And as each day goes by, they are more guilty. Every time they attack, the hostility in social media responses grows.
You can’t control the message. You have to acknowledge that spin control isn’t possible anymore. You need to face your public with transparency and a willingness to engage in conversation.
However, contrary to what you say in the post, you can’t be silent and go viral at one time. Staying silent is never an option. what is critical is the perceived sincerity of your response.
Integrity and trust are fragile things. And reputation hinges on how you deal with this. Destroyed in an instant, trust takes a long time to rebuild.
Deborah, what a great response. Thank you. You obviously know what you are talking about.
That’s a good point re. silence v response – I see where you are coming from. Silence creates a void that inevitably will become filled with an increasingly negative vibe, on top of a virus of criticism.
I’d be interested in looking a bit more closely at Toyota…
Fancy a guest post?
This is an interesting article. It once again reminds me that our closest customer is also perhaps our nearest activist.
In this media context, the difference between organisations and the customer is degrees of constraint. The organisation must measure its response in conjunction with a well defined brand, values, history etc. and wider societal frameworks e.g. ethics, norms etc. As such, the organisation is more challenged on the internet than its free roaming, happily blogging and posting customers; it can be less attractive than an irate customer/community; and it responds much more slowly, because of the very dynamics that characterise organisational size.
And so the question arises: how can a lumbering corporate become an effective producer of viral media? Is it only about being more creative and innovative in the message and media? How can the corporate act like an individual whilst maintaining a consistency with its great legacy and image? How can the great mass that is “organisation” get one-to-one with the individual customer?
Perhaps our closest customer is also our nearest activist… Perhaps, in this internet context, we ought to nurture customers who nurture customers, nurture communities that nurture communities. Perhaps, we ought to begin thinking about our response in a very different way altogether.
Deborah & Jaime
Really insightful comments about a great original piece from Scott. Reading the silence/sincerity point from Deborah immediately brought the recent Tiger Woods debacle to mind and proved how even the biggest personal brand (and his advisors) can get things spectacularly wrong. First there was SILENCE. We didn’t hear or see from Woods for almost 3 months – a vacuum the world’s press rushed in to fill. Then when he did finally speak, it was so INSINCERE, stage-managed and painfully delivered it just made things worse.
Deborah is bang on when she says ‘You have to acknowledge that spin control isn’t possible anymore. You need to face your public with transparency and a willingness to engage in conversation.’ Remember when George Michael got arrested in the LA loos for soliciting an undercover cop? He went straight on to TV chat shows and held up his hands. He even turned the situation into a piss-take pop promo. We respected his honesty, his self-effacing humour and he retained a certain level of integrity. We forgave him.
Had Nestle said, ‘We would never source Palm Oil knowingly from unsustainable sources. We will launch and investigation and if we find otherwise, will rectify the situation with immediate effect and make reparations to the world’s sustainable Palm Oil forests’ they might have salvaged some respect. But they didn’t and I suppose with hindsight it’s easy for us to point out their mistakes
But there is a principle that all brands, Woods and Nestle among them, should have realised before their fall from grace: don’t stand for convenient and marketable values when the real truth is somewhat different. The public aren’t mugs.Treat them as such they will eventually crucify you for cheating your way into their hearts and wallets.
Hi Guys
Thanks for the feedback and the discussion!
I’m curious to know, what do you think Nestle should do now?
Scott
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by JaimeSteele: @scottgould http://bit.ly/btNW7K – cheers Scott – let me know if you want anything changed. J…
Hi Scott
What should Nestle do now? I think two things:
NOW – Come clean. If they messed up and were sourcing unsustainable palm oil, say sorry, they didn’t realise and they will alter their purchasing in future. If they didn’t mess up and aren’t doing anything wrong, say so, but with a bit of humility.
FUTURE – Take social media seriously. Put a senior PR in charge of their communities, not someone who reacts personally to the inevitable baiting they will get from time to time.
If they don’t take care they will end up in Perrier/Benzine territory.
Thanks again for the original post.
Mike
They should definitely come clean here, hold their hands up and say, “Sorry we got this badly wrong.” People will forgive and it may actually give them some good, positive PR.
It would be nice to see them make a parody video of how they got it so wrong with an advice message to other companies but I can’t see it happening. Maybe we will make it on their behalf!
As Mike and a few others have said – come clean.
A large measure of honesty will go a long way. It’s become too easy for companies to believe their own hype and infallibility.
Honesty from within a company to its staff, its publics and its customers is the only was of sustaining a brand and therefore a viable business.
Take the grief from bad actions and decisions, admit the mistakes and be honest about how and when they will be rectified and you will bring people with you and may even engender a little sympathy along the way.
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