Brandjack News

By Quentin Langley

CNN is reporting a legal action against Nestlé over the alleged health complications associated with its Purina Beneful brand.

While, obviously, no-one is suggesting that Nestlé deliberately set out to poison dogs, there is a suggestion that they knew it was harmful and sold it without proper investigation of the reports of problems. Nestlé, of course, denies this. A key part of settling this, then, will be the facts. If the plaintiffs are able to make their case then Nestlé will have to apologise and compensate. If they cannot make their case then that ought to be an end to it. Of course, it may not be.

People continue to make the demonstrably false case that vaccines cause autism. Others insist that George W Bush plotted the 9/11 attacks or that Barack Obama was born in Kenya or that the moon landings were faked. 

So even if Nestlé can produce convincing evidence that Beneful is good for dogs and not bad for them there will still be ongoing damage to its reputation.

This one is going to run for a while, and win, lose, or draw the case, there is going to be long term reputation damage.