Handling bad PR turns sticky for Nestle

[The Straight Story]

Handling bad PR turns sticky for Nestle

Nestle is set to enter the marketing textbooks on how not to handle public relations in the digital age after its treatment of a Greenpeace video highlighting the company's alleged use of palm oil from deforested areas in Indonesia.

Greenpeace's graphic YouTube video of an office worker inadvertently biting into an orang-utan finger instead of a Kit Kat chocolate bar has been viewed 750,000 times in a week.

Nestle's heavy handed tactics to blunt the campaign have landed it in the centre of a firestorm on Twitter and Facebook.

....

A day after the video was posted Nestle cancelled its contract to take palm oil directly from Sinar Mas, but to Greenpeace's disappointment it will continue receive palm oil from the firm through its supplier Cargill.

Belinda Fletcher, a Greenpeace campaigner, said Nestle's own goals of censorship had helped fan the flames of the campaign, not douse them. "We have been so amazed by how this has taken on a life of its own. It's clear it is an issue that people really care about," she said.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/enterprise/handling-bad-pr-turns-sticky-for-nestle-20100326-r0t2.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Every time a company seeks to stonewall the public...

It seems, especially these days, that the blogosphere gets hold of this and runs with it...

Denying what is obviously happening is just plain disastrous for these jokers.

Nestle and Toyota come immediately to mind...

It could not happen to more deserving companies.

:evilgrin:

[HopeHoops]

2. Nestle kills babies.

And I don't say that lightly.

They push their formula in 3rd world countries by convincing women in hospitals to accept free samples because it is "healthier than breast milk". That's a lie to begin with, but after the free samples run out the women are usually "dry" and have become dependent on a product that is way too expensive. The result is that they thin it with water that is often unsanitary. Countless children have died because of this practice but Nestle just sees dollar signs.

I've boycotted Nestle and their subsidiaries (Libby's, Contadina, Carnation, etc.) since about '87.