Business Nightmares with Evan Davis: Cadbury's
In this week I have watched a video in which several of the worlds leading companies have come under some scrutiny as they have created some enormous strategic errors which have cost the company, investors, the government and even the tax payer billions. The first business to come under pressure to adapt to the 21st century's rapidly deteriorating health problems was Cadbury's, this primarily confectionary based company was first questioned over its role in keeping Britain's children healthy in 2003.
I feel you can't help but look at Cadbury's and know it was always going to end badly for them, the then sports minister Richard Caborn raised the issue of what confectionary companies could do to aid in the decline of obesity in the youth of Britain, they deliberately targeted Cadbury's as it is the largest manufacturer of chocolate and confectionary products in the U.K. It's clear to me that the government were out to get them from the start and in the heat of the moment Cadbury's response was one which looked promising, however hindsight is a wonderful thing and in reality Cadbury's had an absolute nightmare.
I feel you can't help but look at Cadbury's and know it was always going to end badly for them, the then sports minister Richard Caborn raised the issue of what confectionary companies could do to aid in the decline of obesity in the youth of Britain, they deliberately targeted Cadbury's as it is the largest manufacturer of chocolate and confectionary products in the U.K. It's clear to me that the government were out to get them from the start and in the heat of the moment Cadbury's response was one which looked promising, however hindsight is a wonderful thing and in reality Cadbury's had an absolute nightmare.
When I think of chocolate I automatically think of Cadbury's, basically the perfect company to reach out to the younger generation (the age group which the government were most concerned about.) The agreement Cadbury's came to stated that "with every £8 which is spent on Cadbury's products, £1 of sports equipment would be provided to schools or sports programmes, all that was needed was the empty wrapper of the chocolate bar." Even when I read that statement I thought "okay then that seems fair enough" it also seemed like an excellent idea for Cadbury's (bearing in mind they're a confectionary manufacturer) to be shown in the media in a positive light, fighting the battle against obesity, but then also allowed the company to promote more products and basically increase their sales revenue.
However I feel the main issue for Cadbury's arose as they released a list of figures prior to the campaign, the figures corresponded to the amount of chocolate bar wrappers which needed to be returned in order to get a piece of sports equipment. It would take 170 chocolate bars in order to receive a single basketball, 170! This equated to a single child performing 90 solid hours of exercise just to burn the calories off. I'm personally no health expert but what Cadbury's were basically doing was "fighting obesity with chocolate" and just couldn't see the bigger picture.
After watching the video I feel that Cadbury's did have the right intentions but they just didn't deliver them in the right way. As a business who is effectively aiding in the problem of obesity, it was always going to be a task to try to change their label or brand image. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place as changing their ingredients could have lead to a rapid decrease in sales, altering the brand packaging would again have the same effect. So I believe there was actually very little which could have been done to combat this monumental problem they faced.
The good side to this experience from Cadbury's was that they at least were shown to make an effort and attempted to tackle the problem which now faces the entire world, however I feel there are many numerous bad points based on how Cadbury's dealt with the situation.
Firstly they came up with an idea which everyone involved with (even the government) thought was THE best idea since sliced bread. Another problem was the line of industry the company is in, the confectionary industry is obviously a line of work which involves certain ingredients which shouldn't be consumed in high volumes, the campaign Cadbury's set up basically looked at encouraging families to go out and buy more of their products in order to contribute to the community and an overall goal of increasing exercise in school children. Finally the last issue which Cadbury's caused for themselves was the length of time they ran the campaign before finally admitting defeat and shutting down the campaign. Over an 8 month period they faced countless newspaper, online and television reports which crucified them in the media, it caused negative publicity and hampered the name of the company. Essentially the campaign actually went against all of the things it stood for. In my opinion if they were to end the campaign as soon as they received criticism, the damage impact would have been less severe and wouldn't have impacted on the business as much as it did.
Firstly they came up with an idea which everyone involved with (even the government) thought was THE best idea since sliced bread. Another problem was the line of industry the company is in, the confectionary industry is obviously a line of work which involves certain ingredients which shouldn't be consumed in high volumes, the campaign Cadbury's set up basically looked at encouraging families to go out and buy more of their products in order to contribute to the community and an overall goal of increasing exercise in school children. Finally the last issue which Cadbury's caused for themselves was the length of time they ran the campaign before finally admitting defeat and shutting down the campaign. Over an 8 month period they faced countless newspaper, online and television reports which crucified them in the media, it caused negative publicity and hampered the name of the company. Essentially the campaign actually went against all of the things it stood for. In my opinion if they were to end the campaign as soon as they received criticism, the damage impact would have been less severe and wouldn't have impacted on the business as much as it did.
Overall in the grand scheme of things, this catastrophe won't actually change my mind on chocolate and I will no doubt carry on choosing to eat it, to me chocolate is chocolate at the end of the day and it's just like anything else, if you consume it in large quantities it's obviously bad for you.
If you were Cadbury's what would you have done different? Let me know below.
No comments:
Post a Comment