Greenpeace, Nestlé and the Palm Oil Controversy: Social Media Driving Change? (Abridged)

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Its revenues and profits for the year 2010 were CHF 109.72 billion and CHF 34.23 billion respectively. Though Nestlé was among the world's largest food processing companies and had great consumer brands well known for their quality, critics pointed out that the company had a history of confrontations over a range of issues...

Spoof Video
Greenpeace began its campaign that linked Nestlé to rainforest destruction on March 17, 2010. Nestlé's Kit Kat chocolate bars were best remembered by the tagline, 'Have a break, have a Kit Kat', Greenpeace made a parody of the Kit Kat commercial which drew attention to palm oil, an ingredient used in the bar...

Face off on Facebook
Though the Nestlé Facebook page had more than 109,502 fans, it seemed that many had joined just to make critical comments about Nestlé products. The censorship had mobilized social media activists and it was reported that the word had spread to nearly 400 million members...

Around 100 Greenpeace activists dressed as orangutans went to Nestlé's headquarters in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and London, and to seven of its factories in Germany. They asked the Nestlé employees to urge their employer to stop using palm oil. It was reported that outside Nestlé's Annual General Meeting, on April 15, 2010, in Lausanne, Switzerland, the shareholders were greeted by a large number of Greenpeace activists in orangutan suits...

On March 19, 2010, Nestlé apologized for its heavy handed approach with an entry on its Facebook page: "This (deleting logos) was one in a series of mistakes for which I would like to apologize. And for being rude. We've stopped deleting posts, and I have stopped being rude." On the same date, Nestlé announced on its Facebook page its desire to use sustainable palm oil by 2015: 'Hi everyone - We do care and will continue to pressure our suppliers to eliminate any sources of palm oil which are related to rainforest destruction. We have replaced the Indonesian company Sinar Mas as a supplier of palm oil for further shipments.' ...

Experts noted that during the early days of protest, the process of getting people to join a cause took a long time. However, in recent times, the growth of groups simply required the founders' ability to spread ideas online, which could be achieved by using a catchy hash tag on social networking sites. People picked up the news and added it to their own tweets...

Exhibit I: Vegetable Oil Prices, US$ per tonne for 2007 - 2010
Exhibit II: Palm Oil Exports
Exhibit III: Extent of Deforestation in Borneo
Exhibit IV: Profile Pictures on Nestlé Facebook Page
Exhibit V: Impact on Nestlés Share Price on March 19, 2010
Exhibit VI: Greenpeace Message on the WiFi Network at the AGM

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