What comes first – the brand or social media?

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on August 31st, 2009

There is a very thought-provoking blog post by Lauren Fernandez that created some interesting discussion here at the AHA office. At the heart of it is the question – do we conform to social media standards or should they conform to us?

The challenge that Whole Foods is facing is an example; social media became a big part of this issue. Thanks to blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other tools, more people learned about the letter and could weigh in, making their opinions known.

Should the CEO of Whole Foods NOT have written the letter to the editor because it could…

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Posted in: AHA,Reputation,Social Media

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Social media and Whole Foods backlash

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on August 21st, 2009

Gerard Braud has an excellent article on the fallout of Whole Foods CEO (U.S.) John Mackey’s position on health care reform in the U.S.

There has been a huge backlash to Mackey’s letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal. There is now a movement to boycott Whole Foods – there is a Facebook page, a blog and you can follow the boycott on Twitter.

Whole Foods has a forum section on its website where the discussion is quite heated. Braud says that the Whole Foods’ media relations team have been…

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Posted in: Blog,Communications,Interesting,Issues and Crisis,Reputation,Social Media

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