Brand guardians: the ultimate endangered species

There is a lot of talk about orangutans and Nestlé, these days. Most of it on Facebook. If you have been living in a tropical forest for the last week and have missed it, it concerns Nestlé's alleged deforestation of Indonesia in order to grow more palm oil to make Kitkats [please forgive the over-simplification].

People started complaining via the Facebook fan page [oh, the irony...] and the poor moderator had to deal with a deluge of hateposts.

It's not about orangutans, it's about brands

Now, the environmental issue itself is well documented. But of equal interest from a marketing perspective is how this illustrates the weakened power of brands, and the impossible job of the brand guardian - in this case, the Facebook page moderator.

Not only is he fighting on very shaky moral ground in trying to defend the indefensible, but he is also fighting against the might of the social media movement.

There is a belief that social media has liberated the masses to rise against the oppression of the big brands, who used to control the flow of information. So any brand that dares to try to wrest back that control is going to die the death of a thousand electronic cuts as social media users shriek in outrage.

A schoolboy error by Nestlé

The Facebook moderator got it horribly wrong of course. He began by suggesting those commenters with avatars based on the Nestlé logo were infringing copyright by doing so. He was right, of course, but this wasn't the right thing to say. When challenged, he simply got a bit angry and ended up insulting them and resorting to control tactics, ie threatening to delete posts that don't confirm. This is the social media equivalent of taking your football home if you're not allowed to play centre-forward.

So what are brand guardians to do? Social media is all about open communications, so do you just have to sit there and get shot at? Of course not, but brands - especially those who give people lots of reasons to dislike them - really have to think hard about how [and why] they expose themselves, as well as how they will defend themselves.

Thoughtful, reasoned discourse is the only way. But how much resource does this take up? Can Nestlé's lead environmental consultant really spend 8 hours a day online? Clearly not, but there has to be a better way than railing against users.

The rise of social media has changed the habitat for big brands. They are the dinosaurs, ill-equipped to deal with the new landscape, outmanoeuvred by small, furry, online users. The metaphor ends there, but the problems for brands like Nestlé will continue...

Does anyone have a solution?