Is a facebook page the best way for Nestle to communicate with their stakeholders? In other words, does it enable effective communication of key information?
Facebook can be used as an effective platform for communicating with the different types of stakeholders in business including the investors or shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers, managers and the Governmental bodies. There are social networking websites through which the company can establish good communication with its stakeholders and furthermore ensure that issues regarding negative messages and information delivered to the customers can be overcome. There are other social media platforms including the Twitter, Instagram, etc. by which, the customers can be attracted and responded too based on their queries and questions (corporate.nestle.ca, 2018). The problem experienced by the Nestle, Canada was the use of palm oil for the production of chocolate bars and creating chances for extinction of orangutans. They might be in the brink of extinction in case they were fed the chocolate bars that contain palm oil and other harmful components.
The Greenpeace Forest Campaign presented allegations related to the utilization of palm oil for producing the chocolate bars. The report named Caught Red Handed presented by Greenpeace made sure to deforest and cut trees in the carbon rich peatlands, which are considered as major animal habitats. By deforestation, there would be extinction of orangutans and it might even create issues for the last endangered species, i.e., Sumatran elephants and tigers staying there (Crane & Matten, 2016). The deforestation might also result in huge amounts of carbon emissions and causing more pollution. With the extraction of palm oil and managing industries in the place, there would be serious threats on biodiversity as well as on the destruction of rainforests and even deteriorate the brand image and name. The palm oil crisis was a huge problem faced by the company that went viral as soon as it was posted on YouTube (Epstein & Buhovac, 2014).
Nowadays, with the advancement in technology and communication, internet has played a huge role in managing contacts with the different stakeholders and it has been further facilitated with the use of facebook. The social media platform could be considered as effective for enabling openness, transparency and better communication with the stakeholders considering the facts that their responses and queries would be quickly responded too. During the palm oil crisis, Greenpeace caught the company red handed for using the palm oil and managing deforestation and a video criticizing the entire crisis situation was posted on YouTube. It deteriorated the brand image and reputation and even the sales declined (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014). There were many messages posted on Facebook criticizing the organization so Nestle focused on using the sample platform to prove the customers wrong about the messages and information presented at YouTube. Nestle could use the Facebook platform to communicate with their stakeholders and even present a crisis management strategy for complying with the organizational standards and making people gain a positive mindset about the company. It would make the company prepare the contingency plans on time and promote proactive communication for handling the unexpected and critical situations with ease and effectiveness.
There were few mistakes done by Nestle, Canada related to its social media meltdown. Greenpeace pressurized the individuals of Nestle regarding the purchase of palm oil and even criticized the organization for supporting deforestation and even putting the lives of Orangutan monkeys on stake. The video was posted in such a manner that it showed eating a bar of chocolate would be equal to taking the life of an orangutan. Due to this, the video went viral and soon there were many negative comments on the Facebook page managed by the organization in Canada. There was lack of transparency and openness, which also slowed down the movement of information and messages delivered to the customers (Gupta & Kumar, 2013). The video went viral and before doing anything to stop the negative publicity, the company also faced criticisms from all around. The company committed one of the major mistakes during this situation, because Nestle made approaches to remove the video and it angered the members working at Greenpeace too.
The use of palm oil in the chocolate bars also created a back impact on the rainforests, lead to deforestation and even changed the climatic conditions, furthermore resulted in making the lives of orangutans at stake. The allegations made by Greenpeace showed that the company had paved way for the plantations of palm plants to extract oil and to expand the plantation area, deforestation was done, which affected the animal habitats. Due to the loss of habitat, there might be the deaths of thousands of orangutans. Under the Canadian Act, clearing forests for the purpose of oil palm plantations is illegal and this can not only create complexities and legal issues for companies like Nestle, but can also deteriorate the brand reputation (Amini & Bienstock, 2014). Due to the focus on palm oil production, there was deforestation, which was another mistake committed by Nestle and this resulted in huge amounts of carbon emissions too, thereby causing pollution and harming the ecological balance in nature. These were the two major mistakes committed by the organization, which lead to crisis situations and even destroyed the positive brand image and identity of Nestle, Canada. The company mainly lost its control when it tried to remove the video immediately from the YouTube, which caused a lot of controversies and deteriorated the brand image too (Klettner, Clarke & Boersma, 2014).
One of the most important stakeholders in business is the customers. Nestle focused on benefiting these stakeholders to gain a sustainable position in the competitive marketplace and put more efforts to succeed in the business long run. By presenting messages and information in the Facebook webpage, it would be quite easy for reaching a wide customer base and at the same time, provide them with key information and messages to prove the allegations made by Greenpeace wrong. Therefore, Facebook shall be considered as an important tool for managing effective communication of key information and messages (Lozano, 2015).
Yes, Nestle should have responded immediately when the video was released, because within few hours, the video went viral and there were more than 10,000 views at YouTube. This could easily spread through word of mouth and messages would likely get spread all across Canada with people gaining negative mindset. The company though tried its level best to ensure removal of the video, which create outrage among the members of Greenpeace and this incident and video was soon circulated all over internet websites, Vimeo and on the corporate website managed by Greenpeace too (Alejandra Gonzalez-perez & Leonard, 2013). By communicating and discussing about the matters with an NGO, it would be beneficial for Nestle to overcome such crisis situation and ensure successful business functioning again. This could make the company enough capable of winning its customers and influence their buying behaviors to make purchases from the company on a consistent manner. The company should consider the core values and beliefs of the NGO and make sure to create lesser environmental destruction and even manage non-violent and less aggressive confrontation methods to improve the quality and level of public debate.
By responding to the NGO, it would be much more convenient to manage relationships between the crisis response strategy and reputation of the brand. This can make the company become more socially responsible as well as create a positive impact on the client perception. A diverse skill set will be prepared, which can maintain higher degree of job flexibility while working on the projects related to sustainability and corporate citizenship (Von Geibler, 2013). There should be creativity, innovation and flexible responses provided for the issues and thus the workload might be reduced too. By responding to Greenpeace, Nestle would be able to overcome this crisis situations and become socially responsible to prevent deforestation and manage reduced carbon emissions.
By responding to the NGO, the allegations might be changed and more focus should be placed on sustainability and corporate social responsibilities (corporate.nestle.ca, 2018). This would enable the organization to gain its existing condition and preserve its position in the competitive business environment of Canada to achieve long term success and profitability. It is also recommended that Nestle stay true to its brand personality and values and become responsible, which can allow for promoting openness, transparency and loyalty towards the customers as well (Crane & Matten, 2016). Facebook could develop digital sentiment through various engagement practices and even make necessary investments on the social media presence of a brand. It would also be useful for making the customers believe that they have been valued and listened to their queries that should be responded to (Tai & Chuang, 2014).
References
Alejandra Gonzalez-perez, M., & Leonard, L. (Eds.). (2013). International business, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Amini, M., & Bienstock, C. C. (2014). Corporate sustainability: an integrative definition and framework to evaluate corporate practice and guide academic research. Journal of Cleaner Production, 76, 12-19.
Baumgartner, R. J. (2014). Managing corporate sustainability and CSR: A conceptual framework combining values, strategies and instruments contributing to sustainable development. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 21(5), 258-271.
Carroll, A., & Buchholtz, A. (2014). Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management. Nelson Education.
corporate.nestle.ca. (2018). https://www.corporate.nestle.ca. Retrieved 30 April 2018, from https://www.corporate.nestle.ca
Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Epstein, M. J., & Buhovac, A. R. (2014). Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental, and economic impacts. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Gupta, S., & Kumar, V. (2013). Sustainability as corporate culture of a brand for superior performance. Journal of World Business, 48(3), 311-320.
Klettner, A., Clarke, T., & Boersma, M. (2014). The governance of corporate sustainability: Empirical insights into the development, leadership and implementation of responsible business strategy. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(1), 145-165.
Lozano, R. (2015). A holistic perspective on corporate sustainability drivers. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 22(1), 32-44.
Tai, F. M., & Chuang, S. H. (2014). Corporate social responsibility. Ibusiness, 6(03), 117.
Von Geibler, J. (2013). Market-based governance for sustainability in value chains: conditions for successful standard setting in the palm oil sector. Journal of Cleaner Production, 56, 39-53.
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