COLES is battling to control a public relations disaster, after a presentation discussing a campaign to “neutralise” complaints against its $1 a litre milk campaign was leaked to the public.
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The Reputation Management Case Study came to light during a broad-ranging interview with Coles chief executive officer Ian McLeod on SBS program, The Observer Effect.
The case study showed Coles willing to “use every PR tactic possible to neutralise the noise” from “the inevitable farmer protest”.
The comments in the case study came from Coles general manager
of corporate affairs, Robert Hadler, and sparked a wave of protest on social media against the supermarket giant.
The online petition at www.change.org, “Fair Go Coles! – Up the price of generic brand milk to a sustainable rate of return for all,” received a boost, rising to 3353 supporters by the time of publication.
Hundreds of people also took to Twitter to vent their anger, with a tweet from a Sydney researcher best summing up the mood.
“(A) little window into the dirty world of corporate PR spin,” tweeted the woman, whose Twitter handle was Tanya@tattinot.
Australian Dairy Farmers were similarly unimpressed by having farmers’ concerns dismissed as “inevitable protests” that had to be managed.
“To say this document is dripping with cynicism would be an understatement,” said Australian Dairy Farmers president Noel Campbell.
Mr Campbell said dairy farmers across the nation were still struggling with the impacts of Coles’ decision and consumers, farmers and processors were all paying for Coles’ increase in profit from $470 million in 2008 to more than $1.5 billion in 2013.
“Not only have farmers’ incomes dropped in Queensland, Western Australia and northern NSW, but processors have said that milk priced at $1 (a litre) cannot give a fair return to anybody in the supply chain,” Mr Campbell said
“Only last week, Tasmanian supplier of home brand yoghurt to Coles, Tamar Valley Dairy, collapsed, citing pressure on margins as well and a slowdown in sales as key reasons.
“And then along comes a document like this, with Coles’ name stamped all over it, which only adds insult to injury for many dairy farmers.”
Mr Campbell said Coles’ indifference to the plight of dairy farmers was one of a number of reasons why ADF advocated for a mandatory supermarket code of conduct.
But Mr McLeod defended the campaign and its low milk price on the SBS program.
He told the presenter the company was trying to do what’s right for consumers and suppliers but “the word doesn’t get out”, because “the media isn’t interested because it hasn’t got a conflict attached to it”.
“We’ve found in our attempts to give the consumer a better deal (that) there’s been either confusion or a strong attempt to link the two, to use our approach on milk as a bit of a bete noir to further the case of the dairy industry overall,” he said.
He said food manufacturing in Australia had to improve its efficiency.
“Now I’ve got a lot of sympathy for dairy farmers – my grandfather was a dairy farmer, on both sides of my family actually – but things have to change,” he said.
Mr McLeod said Coles was “not ruthless” but determined to get the best deal for customers, “and we want to make sure that the suppliers who work with us get the opportunity to share in that growth”.
Coles did not respond to calls from The Land.
