Surely you have also played some of its variants. You already know: a simple game, in which those who participate must guess any word, which another person must describe without saying any of the forbidden words. A classic and (apparently) harmless board game that, however, in recent days has generated countless headaches to the directors of one of the sweetest companies in the world: Nutella sees its online reputation damaged by playing taboo.
It’s your turn to learn the lesson about Nutella and online reputation.
The new Nutella campaign ends in fiasco
Some days ago Nutellathe well-known brand of chocolate cream gigantic Italian food emporium Ferrerothrew a new online campaign in destined to fulfill one of the dreams of its fans: to cover its sugary object of desire with a personalized label, in the style of what we saw not too long ago with Coca-Cola and its cans.
Actually, the initiative (“say it with Nutella”) was just virtual, and limited itself to offering the brand’s French followers the possibility of design the label and then share it through your Facebook profile. Something, in principle, simple and harmless, but that ended in a resounding disaster for the brand’s online reputation.
The point is that, trying to anticipate the wicked designs of the most malicious part of his followers, a collection that, in principle, could be thought to be carried out by simple bad words, but that a application code leak has brought to light leaving Nutella in a difficult position.
A controversial list of taboo words
The list of taboo words, what you can see in . includes concepts as diverse and unrelated as “obsessed”, “diabetes”, “boycott”, “homo” or “lesbian”going through words that are purely sexual, racist or that directly attack Nutella’s online reputation, such as “Orangutan”, “Phtalatos”, “Bisphenol”, “Indonesia” or “Palm Oil”. The latter refer to the controversy surrounding Nutella and the use of this well-known vegetable fat, the cultivation of which some NGOs denounce as threatening the habitat of orangutans, as well as the use of controversial additives for the design of plastic containers
Of course, the discovery of this list of taboo words has produced the opposite effect to what Nutella was looking for, in a kind of new reissue of the well-known Streisand Effect. The reaction of the brand has been fast, reducing the customization options to a few words.
Nutella and online reputation: other cases
The truth is this is not, nor will it be, the first case in which a brand of international prestige is involved in some kind of scandal which has just severely eroded your online reputation.
Whether due to inappropriate statements by one of its directors, a little diversion of funds to paradise islands with a tropical climate or an advertising campaign that gets out of hand, brands must always be attentive to the impact of their initiatives on the Internet. A lesson that Nutella has surely already recorded on fire in the depths of his chocolate interior.
Do you know more cases like Nutella and online reputation? Tell us!
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