Sara Rosso is definitely what you would call a ‘superfan’ for Nutella. So much so that in 2007, Rosso decided that the chocolate-hazlenut spread deserved its own holiday and created World Nutella Day. Over the past 6 years, the ‘holiday’ has grown into first a community for fellow Nutella fans, and now a movement celebrating the brand. The stated goal for creating the holiday was to ” encourage Nutella enthusiasts worldwide to enjoy and get creative with Nutella.” The event has its own Facebook page with 40K Likes, and a Twitter account with almost 7K followers. On the event’s website, fans have currently submitted over 700 recipes for Nutella, and the entire platform is obviously driving interest, fandom and sales for the brand.
And Nutella just told Rosso to shut the whole thing down. Last month, Rosso received a Cease and Desist letter from Ferrero, the parent company of the Nutella brand.
“They asked me to take down the site because they consider it to be an unauthorized use of their intellectual property and trademarks—the Nutella logo and brand,” Rosso explains.
In Think Like a Rock Star, I devote an entire chapter to helping brands understand who their fans are, and what motivates them. No doubt, Ferrero looks at World Nutella Day, and likely sees little more than customers using its logo and likeness in an unauthorized manner. The company feels it needs to step in and protect its brand, and to be fair it has every right to do so.
But in acting this way, Ferrero is also communicating that it does not understand its own fans, and why they are driving this effort. A fan sees itself as the owner of a brand, in many ways the parent of that brand. As such, they want to see the brand grow and succeed. So they act in what they perceive to be the brand’s best interests.
Ferrero would likely counter that even so, the fan’s best interests for the brand might not be the same as what the brand wants for itself. This is why Ferrero should be working with its fans. Fans are special customers, they want a relationship with their favorite brand. Fans want the brand to step in and give them more instruction on how they can better serve and help that brand.
One of the case studies from the music industry I talk about in Think Like a Rock Star is the fan-run site TheDonnasMedia.com, which was created by fans of The Donnas. The site contains hundreds of thousands of hours of live concert footage from the band’s performances, and even custom made liner notes and photos so fans can literally create their own CDs of The Donnas’ concerts. The band found out about this site years ago, and instead of shutting it down, they contacted the fans running the site, and began working with them to make the site better. They understood that the point of the site from the fans’ perspective was to create new fans for The Donnas, so instead of sending a C&D letter to the site’s owners, the band instead began promoting the site to its fans! And for their part, the fans self-police the site, and won’t allow any material to be uploaded to the site that’s been commercially released by the band (remember what I said about fans acting in what they perceive to be the brand or in this case band’s best interests?).
If Ferrero would reach out to its fans that have organized World Nutella Day, they would no doubt find that Ms Rosso and her team would bend over backwards to accommodate any request from the brand, and would be thrilled that Nutella was reaching out to them. There is an obvious opportunity here for Nutella to work with Rosso and these fans, and create a huge platform for the brand’s fans that could create a significantly positive financial impact on the brand.
But instead, the brand is attempting to shut down the entire movement, and that has, shockingly, led to Nutella now receiving criticism from its own fans on its Facebook page:
“Today, i decided to remove Nutella and other Ferrero products from my grocery list because of the legal actions taken against the http://www.nutelladay.com/. Do whatever you want, but without my money.”
“Bad move Ferrero. Bad, bad move. I won’t be buying your delicious nut butter anymore. It’s a good thing there are plenty of alternatives!”
“We love Nutella, BUT after hearing how you treat your fans, we’ll be switching to an alternative brand.”
“I will never use your product again! You lost more than 1 fan today.”
Rosso has said she will be shutting down the site and all accounts associated with World Nutella Day on Friday. Now there’s still a chance Nutella could step in and say that they want to work with the fans, but the time to do that was before they issued a C&D letter, which is why they are now dealing with backlash from their own fans.
We will be discussing how brands should handle fan-run efforts like this tomorrow during #rockstarchat on Twitter at 1pm Central. But for now, here’s how a brand should respond when it discovers that a fan is running an effort that involves its brand.
1 – Contact the fan(s) first before pursuing legal action. Even if what the fans are doing is clearly against what you feel are the brand’s best interests, it still helps to contact the fans and communicate that to them directly. Normally, the fans will be thrilled to hear from you, and happy to incorporate any changes you request.
2 – Work with the fans to figure out how they can continue to have a relationship with your brand that benefits them, as well as you. Let’s assume that your fans are running a site that, for whatever reason, your brand decides needs to be shut down. Instead of simply sending lawyers out to the fans, contact the fans and carefully communicate to them why their effort is such a disconnect with what your brand is trying to accomplish, and communicate to them that you want to see if they can work with your brand in a different capacity. For example, by attempting to shut down World Nutella Day, Nutella has now alienated an army of literally thousands of fans. If the brand had reached out to these fans and figured out a way that they could keep working together, the fans would have loved it, and the effort would have become an even bigger platform to help the brand. Instead, it’s now become a PR headache for Nutella.
3 – See if there is an opportunity to bring the fan’s initiative under the brand’s umbrella. Instead of shutting down the effort, why not see if the fans would like to help you run it if your brand takes it over? I honestly suspect this is what will happen with World Nutella Day. There is enormous potential in this community, Nutella could easily morph this group into its own brand ambassador program, etc.
4 – Buy Think Like a Rock Star. It shows you exactly how to create a better relationship with such fans, and helps you understand them and how they are trying to help you brand.
If all else fails, you may need to pursue legal action against the fans running such initiatives, but it’s usually a good idea to first contact your fans, and voice your concerns to them. Typically, your fans will go out of their way to work with your brand because remember they are your fans.
If you are a fan of Nutella, what do you think about this story? Should Nutella be shutting down World Nutella Day, or is it a movement that can only help the brand? What do you think?
PS: Thanks to Lauri Rottmayer for the tip about this story.
Afterthought: If Nutella wanted to start today building a new fan community that was 40K strong like the one Rosso has already built (for free), what would be the costs and how much time would it take? I’m thinking about half a million, and remember Rosso has been doing this for 6 years. Whatever the cost, that’s the minimum amount Nutella would be throwing away by not trying to embrace this effort and bring it under the brand’s umbrella.
UPDATE: Nutella just posted on its Facebook page the following “Positive direct contact between Ferrero and Sara Rosso, owner of the non-official Nutella fan page World Nutella Day, has brought an end to the case. Ferrero would like to express to Sara Rosso its sincere gratitude for her passion for Nutella, gratitude which is extended to all fans of the World Nutella Day. The case arose from a routine brand defense procedure that was activated as a result of some misuse of the Nutella brand on the fan page. Ferrero is pleased to announce that today, after contacting Sara Rosso and finding together the appropriate solutions, it immediately stopped the previous action. Ferrero considers itself fortunate to have such devoted and loyal fans of its Nutella spread, like Sara Rosso.”
Kudos to Nutella for doing the right thing!
Honestly, I kind of feel like lawyers get in the way of good business, especially since Rosso has stated she has worked with Nutella’s people before. I guess someone in their legal department decided that anything that wasn’t officially sanctioned was a bad thing, and 86’ed it.
Their loss.
I wish there was more information on who she had worked with and what the context of their exchanges was? Sounds like she only had contact with one or a few people at the brand and/or brand’s agency, and they left, so there was no one there that understood why Sara was doing this.
Definitely their loss, either way.
Mack, will you reach out to her to see if she wouldn’t mind sharing her knowledge down the road?
It would be so interesting for her to join a chat, hangout or your TLARS Community to discuss.
I would be interested in hearing her point of view on what she would do differently (if anything) in the future, not just from the POV of a brand, but also as a super-fan thinking about starting my own “movement”. I’m sure she has some golden gems to share with fans who are advocating!
Great idea Kelly! I just followed her on Twitter. I’ll invite her to join us for #rockstarchat tomorrow!
Well that’s a shame. I hope they learn from their mistake and try to correct it. I’d personally love to see a World Nuttella Day. 😉
Great post Mack. This reminds me of an incident last year with LA Clipper super-fan, Clipper Darrell. (For anyone not familiar with the LA Clippers, they play in the Pacific Div of the NBA )
The incidents are a bit different in nature, however the outcome for Clipper Darrell always give me hope that if the LA Clippers could figure out the value of a super-fan, (they don’t have many!) any company or organization can. The story goes like this:
Clipper Darrell, super fan of 18 years, earned his name early on from the media for his unwavering support and love for the team. However, last March LA Clipper management asked him to ditch his nickname and disassociate himself from the Clippers when they learned that over a period of 18 years, he had earned round about 7k dollars by making appearances at parties as Clipper Darrell, his super-fan persona. Darrell says that he did earn money, yes, and it went towards his super-fan expenses. But because Darrell was not a part of the Clippers officially, they took offense and wanted him to disassociate his nickname from the LA Clippers and not use it any longer.
Clipper Darrell was devastated and then management made it worse for him when they made the public statement “He is not actually a fan of the Clippers, but a fan of what he can make off of the Clippers, and therefore not a fan at all” and offered him a season ticket to go away. What?
After a backlash, tweets of support from Clipper and opposing team members and even offer from Mark Cuban to go green and white and “super-fan” his team, the Clippers knocked some sense into themselves, embraced their super-fan and Clipper Darrell is still with the team.
What I can’t tell you is how they made things better. Some sort of agreement was quickly made between Clipper Darrell and the Clippers but the conditions were never disclosed. I followed the story myself but never saw a post mentioning that Clipper Darrell was back on Yahoo!, WSJ and there is nothing on Clipper Darrell’s own blog. Possibly they just wanted to get their super-fan back out cheering as quickly as possible.
Happy ending (at least from what we don’t read) for Clipper Darrell, the LA Clippers and fans. He is really fun to watch and “makes” the experience. I can highly recommend watching a game just to see Darrell and eat the dogs at Staples Center.
Kudos to Rosso for perusing something she was passionate about and shame on Ferrero to not embrace an amazing opportunity to connect with 40k fans on Facebook. It takes a lot of determination and marketing dollars to build a brand with staying power. Ferraro/ Nutella is really missing out!
I can understand any worries they might have over customers potentially altering their brand logo, etc. Just look at what Kit-Kat went through with Greenpeace activists a few years ago.
But I think those fears could be put out by simply reaching out to these fans and UNDERSTANDING what’s motivating them to do this: A *love* of the Nutella brand.
Why would a brand not embrace the people that love it and who are promoting it to others?
I am still holding out hope that smarter heads will prevail here.
Such a missed opportunity.
Nobody likes lawyers, so this would have been a stellar opportunity to open a dialogue with the fans. It could start with “our lawyers are uneasy with this,” and would likely have been a win/win.
That said, I hope you’re right Mack, and this still has a happy ending. The best part of a fight is the making up, right? 😉
Looks like smarter heads have prevailed at Nutella, and they won’t be cancelling the event. Hopefully this is the start of the brand creating a real relationship with its fans that leads to understanding.
As the owner of a ‘super fan’ type website, this news story about Nutella struck a chord with me! I am glad they eventually did the right thing, though I would love to know a little more about the relationship between Nutella and Sara. I would imagine this has, at a minimum, left some scars.
Kelly, your story about the Clippers is pretty amazing. Fans are devastated to realize they aren’t in some way appreciated by the celebrity/ brand they love!
I’m glad they did the right thing, but seriously they should be sending her a case of Nutella, and an apology. Who in their right mind thought a C & D letter wouldn’t create a backlash!?
Melody I also would like to know who Sara had interacted with before, and if they are still at the brand or not.
The one potential wrinkle in both this story and the Clipper Darrell was that it seems they were both making money off their association with the brands, in each case. That muddies the waters a bit, but I still think it’s in the brand’s best interests to try to work WITH these fans, instead of against them.