Nestlé faces Facebook crisis over Greenpeace rainforest claims

Nestlé faces Facebook crisis over Greenpeace rainforest allegations

Gemma O'Reilly and Kate Magee, prweek.com, 19 March 2010, 3:51pm

Nestlé has struggled to contain a barrage of criticism from angry consumers on Twitter and its official Facebook page.

Facing criticism: Nestlé

Members of the public have taken to both social media sites to criticise the confectionery giant, following reports that it is continuing to source palm oil from Sinar Mas, an Indonesian company accused of illegal deforestation of rainforests.

Greenpeace sparked the reports by posting an online video earlier this weekthat featured an office worker accidently biting into an orangutan finger instead of a Kit Kat. The video aimed to draw attention to the NGO's ongoing battle with Nestle (which owns the Kit Kat brand) over its supply chain.

On Twitter, the firm has been bombarded with critical comments. Consumers have also turned to Facebook and accused the company of ‘hiding behind PR spin', calling the company's response to the criticism a ‘major social media fail'.

Digital PR experts said the situation was quickly becoming a social media crisis.

Porter Novelli associate director, digital, Kerry Gaffney said: ‘Nestle's status updates are pushing people on to its official site to see its corporate response. Someone within Nestle is also responding to posts, but they are not corporate in tone and are juvenile. The company should be tailoring its response more to the environment with a more human tone.'

A Nestle employee was initially responding to criticisms but appears to have stopped responding on the Facebook page.

She added: ‘The person responding for Nestle seems to be junior. In future they need look at the person who is responsible for monitoring the page and use someone more senior.'

The criticism has also spilled over on to Twitter, with users Tweeting Nestle's Facebook page and encouraging people to go on to see the comments posted online.

Gaffney added: ‘Nestle could do a round-up of three or four of the key issues that have been raised and address them. It should also do a video and post it on YouTube to address the topics. If it is brave enough it should do it in response to the Greenpeace video.'

PRWeek revealed earlier this year that Nestle was looking to appoint an agency to help monitor online opinion of the brand.

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All Comments

Gemma O'Reilly - 19 March 2010

Any other thoughts on how Nestlé could deal with this? Should they delete the comments? Or temporarily close down the page?

Steve Dunne - 19 March 2010

This is a classic example of an analogue company messing around in the digital world. Clearly Nestle have not attached a senior prioity to social media - they will now get their butts kicked big time

Nigel Sarbutts - 19 March 2010

In answer to your questions, deleting the comments will be counter-productive, as will closing down the page.

There are two elements to the story. Firstly the way they have handled themselves which is quick to fix and the issue of palm oil, which isn't.

The company needs to avoid its reaction to the first clouding its response to the second by aknowledging that the early, prissy reactions were unhelpful to a mature debate and then start to deal with the substance of the comments with some robust data.

Ed Callow - 19 March 2010

"analogue company messing around in the digital world"

Interesting comment from Steve Dunne - does raise the question, CAN a company like Nestle successfully dip their toe in the social media water WITHOUT this kind of reaction?

The company's prior record is constantly working against it, and perhaps launching a 'fan' page for a brand which is so decidedly controversial isn't such a hot idea. Thoughts?

I've also just spotted a post from the moderator on WWF palm oil 'scores' \(http://bit.ly/bBgEi2). Looks like Nestle got '8.75' out of a possible 29. Why would you post that...?!

Joss Cope - 19 March 2010

Nestle certainly are learning a painfull lesson over this little social media trainwreck, but what about their PR advisors?

Agencies of the calibre of JWT, Ogilvy and Mather, Publicis Group and Nielsen Buzzmetrics have all happily worked on the company's account, despite years of mounting evidence that Nestle has no interest in a sustainable business model.

They must know that full well, and yet continue to use their skills for ill. Surely it's about time that they were asked to explain exactly why they feel no shame in promoting unsustainable products like Kit Kat?

Louise Greeves - 19 March 2010

Interestingly, just unearthed these two beauties in Nestlé's business principles:

"Nestlé recognizes that its consumers have a sincere and legitimate interest in the behaviour, beliefs and actions of the Company behind brands in which they place their trust, and that without its consumers the Company would not exist."

"Nestlé is conscious of the fact that the success of a corporation is a reflection of the professionalism, conduct and the responsible attitude of its management and employees. Therefore recruitment of the right people and ongoing training and development are crucial."

http://www.nestle.com/AllAbout/Governance/BusinessPrinciples/BusinessPrinciples.htm

David Singleton - 19 March 2010

Joss Cope asks a pertinent question. What's the answer, JWT, Ogilvy and Mather, Publicis Group and Nielsen Buzzmetrics??

Denise Turner - 19 March 2010

Whatever your point of view about the hot topic, the point is from any company's side is surely, that before entering any social media activity, it is essential to have a clear social media policy and protocols for all staff who are responsible for giving information to the media - that means Twitter, Facebook et all; in the same way that any crisis management strategy is handled.

Elizabeth Windsor - 20 March 2010

The problem is that Nestlé are never going to be able to develop a fan base for the corporate entity itself. Look at their product fan pages - no such problem. Companies need to realise that you can't just go out there and make a fan page and that just doing that will give you fans. Unless the company completely overhauls its entire business model, it will only ever receive criticism through pages like this.

Paul Griffin - 20 March 2010

I think Elizabeth is correct, keep it to product rather than overall brand I bet there's a Smarties page which is a happy place \(must check). The thing is that I didn't feel my comments were overtly antagonistic but they were taken that way as they obviously had someone junior\(in experience terms) as moderator. If they delete they are damned, if they leave it up they are damned, what they can do is accept there is a great deal of public opinion on the subject of Orang Utan, Rainforest and Palm Oil and make a positive decision to confront it \(nicely) soon rather than using 2015 as their target date which is quite ridiculous. Statement next week with timeline for 5 months hence to have removed Palm Oli or removed all unsustainable supplies.

Marlena Braeu - 21 March 2010

It`s ridiculous to say that a senior would have done the job better than a junior. Since when do Seniors have more experience with social media?

Nestle`s biggest problem is that it`s a conservative corporation, run by conservative men. They try to participate in social media because they feel they have to, but have no idea what creating a true dialogue or engagement means, because they don`t really care about it. Then when a crisis like this comes up, they panic and immediately fall back into old habits - legal threats and corporate press releases. Blaming what happened on a lack of experience is a little shortsighted.

Marlena Braeu - 21 March 2010

It is ridiculous to blame a junior for this. Since when do seniors have more experience in social media?

Nestles biggest problem is that they still hold on to their conservative pr strategies and only participate in social media because they feel they have to. They don`t care about dialogue or engagement. As soon as a crisis emerges. they fall back into old habits: legal threats and corporate press releases. This has nothing to do with experience, but with attitude towards social media and in my opinion, especially older \(more experienced) people in PR are having a hard time to accept the way PR has changed in the last decade.

read more on http://marlenapr.blogspot.com/2010/03/another-epic-pr-fail-when-nestle-met.html

Nazneen Shaikh - 21 March 2010

Deleting the comments wont work here, more over its not the first time company is facing crises, i believe since 1970 after the boycott scene, nestle is continuously facing one or the other criticism, and its really a high time company look into the serious matter concerning people welfare and legal practices which would in the long run help garnering the social image rather than just concentrating on money making marketing and create buzz of brand without giving a though to it that same buzz can even go again the company itself...

AgentsForChange - 21 March 2010

Nestle had some trouble over breast feeding mothers in the 1980s are they going to learn to listen fist then jump in. The comments here are stella.

Most comapinies who will succeed using the new technology are listening first then jumping in i.e Dell or Comcast.

They cannot delete the comments as this makes you look weak and undemocratic. What they do need to do is mention products like there fairtade Kit Kat, apologise and move on. Perhaps change th way they interface and ask quetions like why are you passionate about KItKat. Another way if your listening through Radion is to have a competition and construct your page arond that.

For one big fail there is a big win as with Starbucks recently. Thanks for a on- the- pulse article Gemma.

Dara Bell

AgentsForChange - 21 March 2010

Julia Gottlieb explains the concept behind this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGT2JnoQKpU&feature=sub

Simon Magee - 22 March 2010

Deleting the comments or page would be tanatamount to turning your back on a conversation and ignoring it as if it never happened. Nestle should engage the users and use this to move forward. Old saying is "Honesty is the best policy" and in this case Nestle would gain soem credability if they were to put there hands up and say! Oops, we got it wrong, what can we do to make it right? Live and learn Nestle! Live & Learn

Nigel Sarbutts - 22 March 2010

>>Since when do seniors have more experience in social media?<<

Social media is just a channel, there is no correlation between the age of the user and success. The idea that 'social media is for young people' continues to be disproved by looking at the age profiles of users.

mike mathieson - 22 March 2010

Nestle have let themselves badly down by not preparing for this latest crisis. It was clear from the Panorama programme on Palm Oil 2 weeks ago that Nestle were in the cross-hairs of Greenpeace. Indeed Nestle are the only large corporate NOT to sign up to the boycotting of Sinar Mass Group the \(largely) illegal Indonesian Palm Oil producer. Given that Greenpeace have been pushing for Nestle to fall into line - it was hardly a great surprise that last week's events took place.

What is surprising though is that Nestle have agreed to comply but this has become totally overshadowed with their heavy handed tactics to quash the Greenpeace Viral, their choice of language on Facebook and their refusal to engage directly with their consumers. Major FAIL indeed.

Julius Duncan - 22 March 2010

Nestle are always going to be up against it in social media for two reasons; 1 - their poor reputation around CSR issues, 2 - because social media presents excellent campaigning platforms for organisations like Greenpeace. All the more reason to think through any online engagement carefully. The elementary mistakes on Facebook are so crude that the areas for improvement are self evident, as outlined above. One point that's not been raised is the benefit of taking the discussion away from the brand's own brand outpost i.e. Facebook, and managing it on a separate site. A bespoke section of the Nestle site, or an issue specific microsite/community would have been a logical location to sign post interested parties towards. This would have the benefit of focusing the conversation in one place, and giving Nestle a location for FAQs, videos, statements and any further response mechanisms e.g. email. The greatest irony is that Nestle were trying to do the right thing by changing palm oil supplier, but failed so badly in the delivery that this was lost. Maybe one of those cases where you should shoot the messenger!

Chris Davies - 23 March 2010

This is that old, old fact of busienss life - a big company getting caught out by a guerilla pressure group: and by "caught out" I don't mean I necessarily believe the criticism \(I don't know the facts) but caught out in the sense that they weren't ready to respond to a crisis - certainly not at the lightning speed at which crises unfold in the online space.

Nestle need urgently to re-group, sort out the facts as far as they know them, make a clear statement \(even if that is "we are urgently investigating") and then respond firmly once they have a position they are happy with. That may mean refuting activiely, it may mean a "mea culpa" - the important thing is to respond, not leave a vacuum.

Laura Woodhouse - 28 March 2010

I agree with Chris Davies. You would think Nestle would realise that you have to be so careful these days with your reputation, as social networking sites are an easy way to start a crisis for a company, not just a an effective way to raise their profile. Every company should have an effective crisis management plan just in case something like this happens.