Big Food Employs Cyber Armies to Confront Critics

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Activist Post

As you read this article, Nestle is reading it too.

Big food companies enjoy greater sales and popularity using social media. Nestle takes it even further with its state of the art Digital Acceleration Team (DAT). Tasked with "listening, engaging, transforming, inspiring," it actually looks more like a brightly lit intelligence base complete with a TV news studio-like room.

If Nestle is the number one food company and 12th place in the Reputation Institute's most popular brands, why would it need a special department to oversee all internet buzz - even real-time posted recipes?

Nestle is worth $200 billion and has 6,000 brands to protect, many of which are number one in their market -- A little spare change goes a long way in damage control. And Nestle is still under fire from some ongoing PR nightmares.

Reuters clarified last fall that Nestle follows cyber rules and also does not buy popularity or fake profiles through social media sites. It merely monitors and deploys people to respond to negative media. Within minutes, they respond to questions and criticisms all over the net.