Thursday, April 08, 2010

Nestle tries to shake off boycotters

We have a boycott list with the main Nestlé brands in the UK. I was just adding a note that Nestlé is in the process of selling its Alcon contact lens solutions business to Novartis. This is due to complete in mid-2010. In the process I remembered I needed to update the link to Nestlé own brands page. We link to it from our boycott list, but Nestlé keeps changing the address of the page in small ways so the link dies (for example, its been changed from Brands.htm to BrandHome.htm). Thank you to everyone who contacted me about the dead link.

You can find our list with the link to Nestlé's latest page at
http://info.babymilkaction.org/nestleboycottlist

The game of 'find the Nestlé's brand page' is not the only one Nestlé likes to play. A new one surfaced when I visited the Annabel Karmel Facebook page today. Unsurprising as it was recruiting PR experts to try to improve its abysmal image in cyberspace. See:
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2010/02/nestle-launches-cyberwar.html

Bestselling children's recipe book author Annabel Karmel withdrew from a campaign marketing Nestlé cereals last month after finding out more about Nestlé's baby food marketing practices and the boycott. Many members of the public posted messages and some alerted Baby Milk Action to the link up and a misleading statement defending Nestlé that was part of the campaign. See:
http://info.babymilkaction.org/news/campaignblog060410

Visiting the site today I noticed a Nestlé advertisement at the side, calling on people to 'learn more about Nestlé approach to Corporate Social Responsibility'. This is trying to prompt visitors to listen to Nestlé's portrayal of its activities, rather than listen to boycotter supporters and critics.

They are probably targeting any page where Nestlé is mentioned, knowing that with a 'positivity' score in social media of just 12 out of 100 in an audit by Yomego Social Media Reputation (PR Week) these are likely to be critical comments.

Annabel Karmel fan page

Now you might think we know more than enough about Nestlé's approach to Corporate Social Responsibility: Put profits before all else, leave others to count the cost in damage to human lives and the environment, set up a team to tell people to ignore the critics, produce swish PR reports, recruit celebrities and others to pass on misinformation.

But I don't want to stop people hearing what Nestlé would like you to believe. You can find its latest Creating Shared Value report on its site at:
http://www2.nestle.com/CSV/Pages/CSV.aspx

For analysis of its previous report and the complaint the Nestlé Critics registered with the UN Global Compact, which posted the report on its website, see:
http://www.babymilkaction.org/press/press17june09.html

Baby Milk Action is also on Facebook and Twitter. I've added some icons to our website so you can find us.

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