Download - Class Notes for Friday, December 3
Greenpace Allegations
• Nestlé is using palm oil from destroyed Indonesian rainforests and peatlands, in products like Kit Kat.
• Pushing already endangered orang-utans to the brink of extinction and accelerating climate change.
• Greenpeace exposes how Nestlé is sourcing palm oil from suppliers, including Sinar Mas, Indonesia's largest producer of palm oil, which continue to expand into the rainforest and carbon-rich peatlands, as well as into critical orang-utan habitat.
Visually compelling activism
Global reach
High visibility
How should Nestle have responded?
Response options
1)Nestle blew it the first time, asking for the video to come down. What they should have done was brought out a video of their own and placed that everywhere the Greenpeace one was. They’ve relied on one statement and that clearly hasn’t been enough.
Options
2) Not responding to every single tweet/FB post is perfectly fair and valid. At the top of each of their social media pages is their position which makes it easy for people to see. However, they may have lost some ground by not constantly going back to people and saying “look, we’ve already said we’re working to cut out palm oil coming from bad places”.
2b) The more I think about it, Nestle really should counter ever tweet and post. I wonder how many looked at the statement and thought TL;DR (too long, didn’t read) (scroll down here for my thoughts on tl;dr)
Options
3) People on social media love talking about themselves so much so that they can actually dwarf the original message As many people are now talking about the rudeness as the Greenpeace campaign (though are normally mentioning both at the same time). In old school terms, Nestle’s rudeness gave the story legs to keep going.
The tone of Nestle’s FB posts
What Nestle should’ve done
1) When the video came out, organised a meeting with Greenpeace to hear all their points
2) Reveal their position, work with Greenpeace on a joint statement
3) Let Greenpeace spread their version, you spread yours. After all, Nestle have good blogger relationships, they should have used that.
4) Point out that you are trying to make things better, but these things take time. In the meantime all suggestions welcome.
Do brands really suffer from bad PR?
