Nestle Caught in Identity Crisis

Nestle, headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, is the latest company to get caught up in a social media controversy. The issues are complex and whipped up emotionally by Greenpeace, an organization I have little respect for because of their violent and often misleading or untruthful tactics.

If you want to read up on what some bloggers are calling Nestle’s “melt down,” German-based blogger Joerg Weishaupt has a fairly interesting overview on what’s happening.

What caught my attention is how Nestle is branding itself these days, and it was a surprise … at least to me.

When someone says “Nestle,” what do you think of? Chocolate, naturally. Since 1866, Nestle has been known primarily as a chocolate company … chocolate drinks, bars, candy, baby formula … food. But, that’s not the way Nestle describes itself today.

Here are the words Nestle uses to describe itself:

“The world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company.”

Er … what?! You are kidding me!

Nestle no longer sees itself as a food company but rather it is now in the health care business, or at least that what the company’s own words imply.

Nestle’s description of itself continues:

“The Company’s strategy is guided by several fundamental principles. Nestlé’s existing products grow through innovation and renovation while maintaining a balance in geographic activities and product lines.”

If the company – sorry, it is lowercase “c” for proper grammar – feels it is guided by something, it clearly has lost its compass. This corporate descriptor is gobbledegook and meaningless corporate jibberish. This company description suggests an organization that has lost touch with its origins, purpose and reality. It is the type of situation that makes shareholders nervous.

Just as an aside, I wonder how much Nestle paid for such a lifeless and inaccurate description.  It is, for example, never good to use contentious words – such as “leading” or “largest” – in descriptions because it reveals insecurity over authentic vision.

What does all this mean? Well, perhaps Nestle is today suffering from lack of depth of internal expertise at decision-making levels within the company. I know for a fact that Nestle has hired a couple of alleged consultants with no legitimate business experience, relevant accomplishments or competence to “cultivate collaboration … and enable team-centered approaches to strategic action.” When a company hires inexperienced “consultants,” it is certainly not something to muse about.

This apparent mismanaging of clarity over Nestle’s brand description leads me to wonder how that may have contributed to the current social media dustup with Greenpeace over environmental issues. I wonder whether Nestle, striving for grandeur in describing its brand, has contributed to confusion over the authentic nature of the company. It would not be the first time a major brand had stumbled by boasting unwarranted gravitas about its image.

As I counseled a major beer company years ago about its brand, “… at the end of the day, you are still a beer company.”

Related posts:

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3. Crisis Communications: It’s Online
4. Crisis Response in the Internet Era

Category: Featured, Reputation management