Nestle Vs Greenpeace

Topic: How Nestlé Kit Kat tackled Greenpeace’s viral campaign

Background of the situation

Nestlé, one of the worldwide biggest food manufacturers, had encountered social media attack by a prominence environment group, Greenpeace. According to Hickman on 19 May 2010 from The Independent, Nestlé’s Kit Kat consisted of palm oil which produced by unsustainable forest clearing, it threaten the life of Orangutans in Malaysia and Indonesia. Greenpeace quickly appealed Nestlé to end their business relationship with Sinar Mas, an Indonesian supplier that sourcing of palm oil that in consequence of deforestation.

To stop Nestlé from purchasing palm oil Sinar Mar, Greenpeace launched a campaign by uploading a video clip to YouTube where the officer bites off a finger of Kit Kat turns out to be the bloody finger of Orangutan. The video clearly depicts the production of palm oil not only harm the environment but also endangered the life of Orangutans. The parodying video successfully received up to 78000 views and the public started to post negative comment to Nestle Facebook’s page as well as Twitter and YouTube to against Nestlé. However, Nestlé requested Greenpeace to take off the video from YouTube and claimed that it infringed the copyright of Nestlé Kitkat which triggered the hatred of Greenpeace’s supporters.

Though Greenpeace agreed to take off the video but the video was uploaded to another social media platforms, Vimeo. The supporters of Greenpeace initiated to boycott Nestlé messages on Twitter and Facebook page; they also replaced their display pictures to an opposed Nestlé page to against Nestlé. Surprisingly, in order to conceal all of the negative comments, Nestlé deleted all of the comments with anti-Nestlé logo and posted a status to their Facebook page.

The statement angered all of the social media users and aggravated the negative situation.

According to O’Reilly from PR Week (2010), Nestlé denounced that the status that intimidated the online users is originally posted by a junior hence the junior may not have the capabilities to monitor the social media platforms during major crisis. Although Nestlé eventually agreed to end their business relationship with Sinar Mars and ensured to only use certified environmental friendly palm oil by 2015 but their brand image and reputation was greatly discredited and damaged by the viral campaign.

Ethical issues of the case study

1. Nestlé did not agree to follow what Greenpeace asked for and remain their business relationship with Sinar Mas. Even though Nestlé knows that Sinar mars was acting unsustainably that results in forest clearing but they still continue their business relationship with Sinar Mars. From this incident, it shown that Nestlé disregard the environment hence angered the supporters of Greenpeace.

2. Nestlé asked Greenpeace to take down the video from YouTube and citing copyright. It clearly revealed that there was no transparency given for the public to know the production of palm oil which it lead up to deforestation and threaten to Orangutans.

3. Nestlé also deleted most of the negative comments to conceal the situation. They provide zero honesty to the public because they tried to hide from the online users even the campaign had gone viral. They also posted a status to warn the online users not to post any negative comments to their Facebook page.

Common practice in public relations and/or advertising codes published by public relations and/or advertising trade bodies

The codes that involved in this case study is honesty, fairness and advocacy. According to PRSA (n.d.), honesty in the code of ethics represent the truthfulness and accuracy to promote the interest of those we serve as. However, Nestlé failed to show honesty and show truthfulness to the public by deleting negative comments on the social media platforms. In addition, fairness is also one of codes that involved in this case study. The definition of fairness in code of ethics is we should deal fairly with everyone, respect all of the opinions and support the right of free expression. Nestlé not only tried to conceal the bad situation, they also posted a status: “To repeat: we welcome your comments, but please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic – they will be deleted” that intimidate all of the Facebook users which entirely deprived their right of free expression online. Lastly, PRSA defines advocacy as acting responsible for those we represent but in this case study, Nestlé did not show a sense of advocacy in terms of deleting negative comments as well as intimidating the public and continue business relationship with Sinar Mas even though they realized Sinar Mas is one of the illegal forest clearing supplier in Indonesia (PR Week, 2010). Everyone has the right to know the truth especially consumers hence Nestlé has no right to stop the public from knowing the truth or giving any comments.

The way of the ethical or legal issues resolved and the implications of the ethical or legal issues

Nestlé eventually agreed to end their contract with Sinar Mas after the crisis for their short term plan to deal with the damage. According to Greenpeace (2010), Nestlé will stop buying palm oil from companies that own or manage to use palm oil that related to deforestation or forest clearing. This refers to Sinar Mas would be forsaken by Nestlé. To further continue with their long term, Nestlé sought a credible and trustworthy partner to accredit the sustainability of a list of palm oil suppliers in order to prevent the same crisis happen in the future. Apart from the short term and long term plan, Nestlé also participated as one of Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) member to eradicate those companies that involved in unsustainable production of palm oil (Financial Times, 2010). To improve more on communication strategy, Nestle also hired Pete Blackshaw as their head of digital and social media department in 2011 (Neff, 2011).

Conclusions
Overall, the wider issues we looked at during the module that related to this case study is how corporate social responsibility need to work effectively in a company during crisis. Public relations professionals are to analyse the problem and give an instant response to the public during the crisis. As far as it concerned, Nestlé should have been experienced and well trained for crisis management, Greenpeace’s viral attack on Nestlé could have been resolved in less than an hour. However, Nestlé used the wrong way to communicate with the online users which triggered the hatred from their supporters as their Facebook status was too provoking. Also, a big company like Nestlé should have managed their online media differently, Nestlé should have focused online media as it is the vital point which could leads online users to have positive or negative perceptive towards their brand. A digital and social media employee should have known how powerful the social media is in this generation, ‘junior employee do not know how to handle social media crisis well’ could not fit to be an excuse to cover this crisis because this is what we should know, every single words posted online can leads to different outcome of all the crisis. Instead of asking Greenpeace to take down the video and citing YouTube, Nestlé should have responded well to Greenpeace’s YouTube attack. Showing well transparency to the public is what a company should do to gain credibility in order to maintain a good reputation of its company earn a good perceptive in public’s mind. It is imperative when Nestlé engaged with the criticism and public rather than absence from the social media platforms. It is mandatory for Nestlé to establish an online media contingency plan to tackle any crisis happen in future.

Bibliography

Video link: http://vimeo.com/10236827

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Greenpeace.org, (2010). Greenpeace | Ask Nestle to give rainforests a break. [online] Available at: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/kitkat/ [Accessed 2 Jan. 2015].

Greenpeace.org.uk, (2010). Kit Kat maker drops suppliers who wreck orang-utan habitat | Greenpeace UK. [online] Available at: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/kit-kat-maker-drops-suppliers-who-wreck-orang-utan-habitat-20100517 [Accessed 2 Jan. 2015].

Jamie, (2010). Success! You made Nestlé drop dodgy palm oil! Now let's bank it with HSBC | Greenpeace UK. [online] Greenpeace.org.uk. Available at: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/success-you-made-nestl%C3%A9-drop-dodgy-palm-oil-now-lets-bank-it-hsbc-20100517 [Accessed 2 Jan. 2015].

Neff, J. (2011). Nestle Hires Pete Blackshaw as Global Digital Chief. [online] Adage.com. Available at: http://adage.com/article/news/nestle-hires-nielsen-s-blackshaw-global-digital-chief/148679/ [Accessed 2 Jan. 2015].

O'Reilly, G. (2010). Nestlé faces Facebook crisis over Greenpeace rainforest allegations. [online] Prweek.com. Available at: http://www.prweek.com/article/991636/nestle-faces-facebook-crisis-greenpeace-rainforest-allegations [Accessed 2 Jan. 2015].

PRSA, (n.d.). Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Member Code of Ethics | Statement of Professional Values | Code Provisions of Conduct. [online] Available at: http://www.prsa.org/aboutprsa/ethics/codeenglish/#.VKcY0IqsXfY [Accessed 2 Jan. 2015].

Veronica, (2013). Nestlé's PR Crisis: Kit Kat or Kit Kat Killer. [online] Veronica Crisis Management Blog. Available at: http://qx272.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/nestles-pr-crisis-kit-kat-or-kit-kat-killer/ [Accessed 2 Jan. 2015].