Getting some perspective

Via Campaign a couple of weeks ago I was directed to Nestle's Facebook page, just as it was going into meltdown.  But more on this is in a minute.

The Campaign piece was basically a transcript of an exchange between Nestle and a couple of people on their Facebook page.  You can read it here.  The basic gist was that Nestle politely asked visitors to the page not to use versions of their logos.  This seemed to cause disproportionate levels of agitation.  A certain Darren Smith invoked freedom of expression (yes, freedom of expression), whilst Paul Griffin flounced out with 'You just lost a customer, won the battle and lost the war! Happy?'

My God, I thought, if this is the new 'empowered consumer' then we're in deep shit.  Because they behave like petulant children. Darren - freedom of expression?  Really?  You want to be 'free' to use a Nestle logo?  On their page?  And if you can't that's violating your freedom of expression?  Get some perspective.  Try here.

And Paul, thanks for the lecture on the niceties of social media marketing, but really, do you think anyone gives a shit?  Do you think that Nestle's going to go down because they ask people not to use their logos, on their page?  Do you really think this is 'Big Brotherish' ?  Get some perspective.  Try here.

Then something really interesting happened.  I went over to the page to check it out myself.  Right in the middle of a concerted assault on Nestle beacuse of their use of Palm Oil.  An assault that lead to this.

At last, some perspective. Some genuine grievance.  A great example of social media putting on pressure for real change.  Not a couple of idiots bleating about logos.

As Jon Howard commented on PunkPlanning, the problem with the digerati is they place so much emphasis of the 'ethics' of social media that they've forgotten about the 'ethics' of business.  Quite right.  If we're going to have a debate, let's make it a serious one.

--  Toby

Comments

[Chris Needham]

What an insightful view of the perseption of media today you can take any media that you see and it can get flipsided by contraversial politics, take for example SEO (search engine optimisation and marketing) this is simply a way of helping out a business to market there products and services correctly but can go horribly wrong if not using the right professionals.