Consumers show their muscle and Cadbury fesses up to mistake
A few short months ago Readers Digest declared Cadbury the No 1 trusted New Zealand brand. The coverage was extensive…accolades galore for the “iconic Kiwi brand”.
Before the chocolate was set on that announcement, we learned that Cadbury had re-sized its chocolate blocks and substituted palm oil for cocoa butter. Apparently this was all for our own good, that is the continued affordability of Cadbury’s chocolate.
The initial protests to these developments seemed quite muted and even confused, perhaps because a competitor attempted to stir the chocolate. When that intervention was over, chocolate lovers really got to work via Facebook, Twitter and old-fashioned email.
We’ve now seen the results, an apology from Cadbury NZ managing director: we got it wrong.
You have to expect that a brand like Cadbury would have done a crisis assessment before embarking on its product changes, no matter how seemingly sensible.
In the event, once on the back foot, its messages became too complex to articulate and consumers were not interested in listening. Perhaps another factor in this issue has the determination of consumers to remind Cadbury exactly who determines brand leadership. Consumers create brands, companies are the guardians.
This has been a hard-earned lesson for the chocolate maker, but one that every FMCG company should have ears for.
Tags: brand power, brand stewardship, Cadbury, crisis management, marketing, palm oil, Readers Digest, Social Media
March 17th, 2010 at 11:10 am
“Cadbury the No 1 trusted New Zealand brand”???? Hmm not any more…not by a long shot!!!!
They hadn’t even managed to scrabble their way back from the palm oil *slick* (despite a public apology & change of tack…) when hot on the heels of that major debacle, they changed the place of origin of their Creme Eggs, which was once again met with public outrage…on various internet sites, as well as two news channels here in NZ…
As if that wasn’t enough, around the same time they sold out to Kraft who promptly closed their historic British production base…
I boycotted them, in favour of Whittakers, for quite a while & then two weeks ago, I succumbed & bought some Old Gold 70% dark (it was too good a special)
Well I threw up on Sunday after eating some, & it burnt my throat so bad!!! Then most of Monday I couldn’t face food (or choc) I have to be pretty bad to not be able to face choc… Then I got the aches & shakes & I never get sick!! Hmmm…gotta wonder…
There is something in their Old Gold Dark chocolate that is not right… There are less carbs in their dark choc (than Whittakers) & yet it tastes sweeter…How can that be??!!
They argued that it has 2% less cocoa solids but 2% isn’t that much & also I am not convinced that the inclusion of the words MILK SOLIDS in bold is just there as a warning!!! Otherwise it would say “may contain”???!!!
From my reactions after eating
They have mucked with the recipe – why would that be no surprise??!! I hope for all our sakes that the highly addictive HFCS isn’t lurking in there somewhere???!!!!
With Whittakers I feel satiated & stop after two rows… with Cadbury Old Gold I feel sick after eating it, not satiated…
Their response to “send some down for you to test” may be all very helpful (??) but cannot be conclusive – unless they could test what I threw up… And unless the tests are conducted independently, what is it worth??!!
I will be extremely interested in their response…