I just love a box of Smarties. It reminds me of when I was a kid. For me, Smarties are still favorite compared to M&M’s, the ”imitation Smarties”, that came to the market later. But when I was eating the lovely little chocolates the other day, I remembered that Smarties are a part of a bigger brand, Nestlé. And no matter how good they taste, I recall the fact that Nestlé had some real bad publicity a few months ago.

Nestlé’s reputation damage was caused by Greenpeace, that started a campaign against the way they treat the rainforest. Also, Nestlé didn’t know how to behave in social media, which resulted in a disaster. Nestlé’s brand exists of different products, each on the market with it’s own brand.You have KitKat, Rolo’s, Lion, Nuts en Smarties. But each single brand has strong associations with their mother brand. If the mother suffers, the daughters suffer too.

Nestlé also has two other daughter brands that have nothing to do with chocolate: animal food and Nespresso coffee. However, the associations between Nestlé and these daughters are not very strong. So when the mother suffers, the daughters could be unaffected.

The youth sentiments I have with Smarties are very strong, so the reputation damage will result in me buying less Smarties. But I doubt that I can speak for everyone…