Greenpeace launched a successful campaign against Nestlé's Kit Kat over its use of unsustainable palm oil, which involved a viral parody video portraying Kit Kat as harmful to orangutans. The campaign gained significant traction on social media, leading to overwhelming public pressure on Nestlé, which eventually agreed to stop sourcing unsustainable palm oil. Nestlé's poor handling of the situation, including deleting negative comments and failing to engage proactively, contributed to the campaign's success and a substantial drop in Kit Kat's brand sentiment.

1. Greenpeace vs Nestlé Kit Kat
A study in social media influence

2. Kit Kat Greenpeace Palm Oil
lobbying

3. Greenpeace - Kit Kat Palm Oil lobbying
• 17th March 2010 - UK Greenpeace posted a gory parody video of the
standard Kit Kat – Take A Break ad, showing an office worker gnawing on
an orangutan’s finger instead of a Kit Kat bar, and the tag line “Kit Kat
Killer”
• The aim was to get Nestlé to stop buying unsustainable palm oil from Sinar
Mas, a global supplier that was destroying the south east Asian rainforests
where orangutan’s were being threatened
• The campaign took off globally, with many people posting boycott Kit Kat
messages on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
• The Nestlé Facebook page was overrun with people begging Nestlé to stop
using palm oil and killing the orangutans. Nestlé deleted the messaging and
responded with angry comments faced additional backlash for handling
their social badly
• Greenpeace globally used other peaceful demonstrations on and offline
• By 20th May 2010, only 10 weeks later, Nestlé announced it would stop
sourcing the unsustainable palm oil, a huge victory for Greenpeace and
social networking

5. Greenpeace takes 33% of the conversation
- Using Alterian SM2 to monitor keywords & isolating Australia only

6. Kit Kat 926 mentions – Jan to July 2010
- Using Alterian SM2 to monitor keywords & isolating Australia only

7. Kit Kat Mentions – Jan to July 2010
Initial launch of
Greenpeace
video and
campaigning
Success of
Greenpeace
campaign
- Using Alterian SM2 to monitor keywords & isolating Australia only

8. Kit Kat-Greenpeace – Sentiment
- Using Alterian SM2 to monitor keywords & isolating Australia only

9. Kit Kat – Sentiment is influenced
by Greenpeace campaign
247 of very negative
& 44 of somewhat
negative are the
Greenpeace related
negative campaign
- Using Alterian SM2 to monitor keywords & isolating Australia only

10. Twitter is the primary channel for
mentions (Kit Kat)
- Using Alterian SM2 to monitor keywords & isolating Australia only

11. Twitter is the primary channel for
mentions (Greenpeace)
- Using Alterian SM2 to monitor keywords & isolating Australia only

12. SIM (Social Influence Marketing)
Score Jan – July 2010
Neutral Positive Negative SIM Score
Kit Kat 395 73 337 0.16
1.00 is the highest
possible score
Kit Kat extremely
low score due to
Greenpeace
campaign

13. SIM (Social Influence Marketing)
Score August – Sept 2010
Neutral Positive Negative SIM Score
Kit Kat 63 24 20 0.63
Kit Kat score
recovers after the
resolution to the
Greenpeace
campaign

14. KitKat Nestlé & Greenpeace Learnings
• Greenpeace campaign succeeded in taking down the sentiment of KitKat to
an extremely low level
• Nestlé gave fuel to the campaign by having the YouTube video banned
initially, causing international news services to pick it up, and giving the
campaign oxygen (it went viral soon after)
• Nestlé did not pro-actively respond using any social media, instead deleted
Facebook comments and posted angry status updates around the use of the
Nestlé logo by people within Facebook who wanted to bring awareness to
the Greenpeace campaign, which caused even more uproar
• Nestlé failure in social and its lack of social crisis management contributed
significantly in Greenpeace success in the social campaigning
• Two Australian specific tactical campaigns for KitKat - Desk Jockey and
Take Back Time were launched early June to combat the negative impact of
Greenpeace on the brand, but did not get enough traction to offset the
overall decrease in brand sentiment until well after the capitulation of
Nestlé

15. Tiphereth Gloria
Social Media Strategist
http://twitter.com/tiphereth
http://www.digitaltip.com.au