Have a Break?

Although it has bubbled away for a long time, the Greenpeace anti-Nestle campaign very publicly reared its head recently, giving Nestle the perfect chance to feature as a high profile case study on how not to respond to a crisis when using social media.

The power of social media has made the crisis management minefield even trickier to navigate, opening businesses up to attacks where there was previously no platform. Rallying public support using a channel that has the capability to reach thousands in a very short space of time, these campaigns can have a very rapid detrimental effect on a company, no matter how solid their CSR policy.

While elaborate, visual stunts are normally the name of the game for Greenpeace, the fact that this latest attention grabber, arguably one of its most successful, built up a storm from behind a computer screen, illustrates exactly how a well-targeted social media campaign can harness the power of online gossipers and bloggers, pick on the flaws of a multi-national’s crisis management plan and muster enough momentum to leave a large corporation’s reputation in meltdown.

Greenpeace’s strategy was simple – no scaling London landmarks, no storming North Sea oil rigs, no hoisting banners on the tailfin of a BA jet at Heathrow. OK, they did dress up as orang-utans at various Nestle offices. But aside from that, its best tactic was to throw a line to the masses, posting a hard-hitting video on YouTube which replaced chocolate fingers with some of the ape variety, whilst brewing up damaging chatter on Nestle’s Facebook page.

The result? A campaign that highlighted Nestle’s inability to handle its social media channels effectively – its ham-fisted response saw representatives trying to delete wall posts from the Facebook fanpage as soon as they appeared, responding to wall posts in what was taken as an aggressive, holier-than-thou tone, whilst attempting to block YouTube views.

It wasn’t necessarily Greenpeace’s actions that caused such damage, but the way Nestle reacted to them – rather than stem the flow, they angered consumers who then fuelled the fire, and the story blew into an international news item as a result.

They finally got a grip on the situation with a calm, detailed and transparent response to the offending issues which would have gone some way to help. But it was posted on Nestle’s corporate website, not at the battlefield itself and was therefore completely missed by the Facebook feeding frenzy.

Nestle’s reputation has taken a serious battering and it will take a huge amount of time and effort to restore this. For businesses and PR agencies, it is a valuable lesson and one that highlights how important it is to advocate the development of robust crisis management strategies, with clear plans directed at social media.

The key is to engage people from the start – find a balance between openness and brand control and try to keep the platforms from which people can grumble or insult in a place that you manage and facilitate. People need to be in a place where they’re talking to you, so that you can deal with the problem, provide answers or explanations and keep them aware of what’s happening.

They also need to be talking to someone who understands the situation and is clear about the company’s brand objectives; a) so that they don’t cause further fury by responding in an inappropriate, stuffy and condescending way and b) so that they can toe the corporate line.

Like it or not, people will always discuss, debate, complain and spread their opinion of brands online. And with a plethora of new websites, forums and apps launching every week, managing online reputation is a challenging task that needs serious consideration.

Engage the public, respond to complaints, be transparent, don’t try to stifle cyber-chat and most importantly, work with your PR team to develop a comprehensive crisis plan that covers all eventualities. Leave the gaffs to Nestle.