How can your column allow an attack on Nestlé, P&G and Coca-Cola?

Question: My friend and I partnered to set up a regional distributorship in the late 1990s. That was also when we took up our Master in Entrepreneurship at AIM. You were one of our professors. We’ve sold our distributorship and are now in food services.

The three consumer companies you wrote about in your MRx column last week had all been our principals. We have to say that they were very good business partners and we learned a lot from them. That’s why we could not believe when, last Friday, your MRx column allowed those students who labeled themselves “socially responsible students” to attack Nestlé, P&G and Coca-Cola for being “socially irresponsible and guilty of unethical production and marketing behavior.”

What was even more unbelievable to my partner and myself was that your column did not even defend them. And to think that at AIM, you were the Coca-Cola professor of international marketing. We think you owe those companies an apology. Or else, you could have, out of respect for those three most admired corporations, at least skipped naming them in the column.

Answer: If you actually read last Friday’s MRx column, you must admit that you’re guilty of misreading and exaggerating.

Those students were not at all accusing. Here’s what they actually wrote: “We’ve googled some of the leading consumer companies about their CSR… We were unbelievingly shocked to find out (that) three of our most admired companies have been severely criticized for socially irresponsible and unethical production and marketing of their brands. Those three companies included Nestlé, P&G and Coca-Cola.”

So it’s NOT those students who “attacked Nestlé, P&G and Coca-Cola of being socially irresponsible and guilty of unethical production and marketing behavior.”

Those students were themselves unbelieving about what they read on the website, “Shop ethical!, Your ethical consumer guide.”

These were just college students. The two of you were graduate ME (Master in Entrepreneurship) students at AIM. Rush judgment came from the two of you graduate students while the beginning of understanding was with the undergraduate students. It is the two of you who owe these students an apology.

This brings us to the more significant issue underneath the misguided e-mail you sent. This is the issue of: “Who’s responsible for answering those ‘accusations,’ if indeed they are accusations rather than plain ‘news facts?’”

You claim to be ME graduates. If this is true, then you must still remember that the handling of adverse “news,” such as quoted by the students who wrote me, is the job of the company PR agency or its corporate affairs office.

Among the several considerations to take in this case is about today’s media realities. For example, according to a McCann-Erickson’s media research on the youth’s media habits and practices, for every one hour of TV viewing, on the average, teenagers spend 3 hours online. So which is this market segment’s obvious primary media?

So, this leads you to the question: “Where were Nestlé’s, P&G’s and Coca-Cola’s PR agency and/or corporate affairs while the website ‘Shop Ethical!’ was talking and spreading the online news about the socially irresponsible behaviors of Nestlé, P&G and Coca-Cola?” The answer is also readily obtained online.

If you google, for example, Nestlé and what it has done to handle the international criticism against its “aggressive marketing of infant formula,” you will find that it has done a whole lot.

Its website Nestlebaby.com tells you to “simply select the Nestlé website created for your country,” to learn the latest on the issue.

You will learn similar initiatives on P&G’s website regarding the criticism against it for animal testing. Its website on “animal welfare” updates you on what are the on-going P&G activities in support of its declaration: “At Procter & Gamble, we believe the elimination of animal testing is the right thing to do.”

In the case of Coca-Cola, its website on CSR (corporate social responsibility) does something similar.

At this point, we should ask another but related question: “Will this online communication strategy effectively reach ‘ethical students’ such as those who e-mailed MRx column? Is there a better way?”

Just consider how those students who e-mailed MRx column learned about the supposed “socially irresponsible behavior” of Nestlé, P&G and Coca-Cola. They went online and googled. What if, as they were reading the “ethical consumer guide, Shop Ethical!,” they also found a link to the pertinent Nestlé, P&G and Coca-Cola websites?

We know that not all those students will click the links, but some or even many will. When they do, they will have the two sides of the story. They will learn the entire truth and reality, and not just half of it. Being that alert and quick to act is the professional responsibility of the company’s PR agency and/or corporate affairs office. Learn correct accountability.

Keep your questions coming. Send them to me at  [email protected].