8 ms·
Nestle is a truly horrible company[1], this hook-up has really re-enforced the notion in my eyes that Google is now just another big multi-national corp in the
by RobAley 13y ago
Nestle is a truly horrible company[1], this hook-up has really re-enforced the notion in my eyes that Google is now just another big multi-national corp in the same vein as the rest. It's sad, because I used to think they could show the world that a big corp didn't have to do things that way. I'm not sure if they changed or if I was just naive.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9#Controversy_and_criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9#Controversy_and_cri...
- sharan 13y agoYou arrived at this conclusion as a result of Android's naming convention which uses food names instead of version numbers?
- willvarfar 13y agoJelly Bean was sponsored? Calling the version "KitKat" was basically product-placement.
- ape4 13y agoWho is sponsoring who?
- willvarfar 13y agoNestle paid for product placement of 'kitkat'. Nestle have given press releases describing their 'collaboration', and even set up this website. Its inconceivable that Google did not demand payment; Google could have called it something generic like all their previous versions. Google of course probably approached Nestle. They created a new revenue generating angle on creating an OS. Debian ought to go get money from other brands through similar version naming. Seriously, why isn't the next Ubuntu called "Head&Shoulders"?
- kevincennis 13y agoThere was an article on The Verge yesterday about the Google/Nestlé thing. They said no money changed hands.
- gdilla 13y agoRight. Why does Google need to paid for this? Any dollar figure would be insignificant, not scaleable and not part of their core business. Selling naming rights to their SDKs?! Are these baseball stadiums?
- deelowe 13y ago> Nestle paid for product placement of 'kitkat'. I haven't seen that anywhere. All reports thus far have said that neither side is paying for this.
- ape4 13y agoMight become a thing. Of course, Android is more famous than Ubuntu (to the masses)
- epo 13y agoGoogle could not have adopted marketing like this without Nestlé's approval. Nestlé are truly vile and "do no evil™" are in some form of partnership with them, at the very least it is cross-promotion.
- RobAley 13y agoNo, I arrived at that conclusion because KitKat and Google have both publicly announced the tie-up, and Google doesn't seem to understand, or more likely doesn't care, what it means to actively promote a company like Nestle. There are plently of other "K" foods they could choose if they wanted to. To be fair, it's not just this incident that helped me reach the conclusion, its been festering at the back of my mind for a while.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- strickjb9 13y agoI'm not sure I see this as anything more as a co-branding strategy.
- DanBC 13y agoBut it's a co-branding strategy with a company that is widely condemned as having some horrible (and illegal) practices. It's trivially easy to find these. I cannot believe that anyone at the largest search engine company in history failed to find or read criticism of Nestle before announcing the co branding. The only conclusion to draw is that Google knew about, and did not care about, the criticism of Nestle. Why not go the easy route and find a less obviously evil company?
- gbog 13y agoAnother possible conclusion is that they selected a few possibilities, including other K-desserts (Kakao? no, too Cocoa; Kremlin Cake? too sovietic; Kaki jam? Weird, too Chinese; etc) and decided the less bad one was Kitkat. I'd say the problem is to be too systematic. Same with Ubuntu Zoomy Zoo and Apple iSeries. Would a writer submit himself to such a gimmick for his book's names? However, my main grip again Kitkat would be that it is the same as all other "chocolate" bar: it is industrial junk-food, making us all obese, and it do not contain chocolate.
- 13y ago
- gdilla 13y agoThey never used branded or trademarked food names. It's cute and attention getting though.
- blumkvist 13y agoNestle's CEO insists on his opinion that all the water in the world should be privatized. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEFL8ElXHaU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEFL8ElXHaU
- gojomo 13y agoHe's the former CEO (still chairman), and thst's not a fair summary of what he says in that video, about recognizing that water can have a price/cost like food.
- blumkvist 13y agoDon't let carefully crafted statements fool you. Also, he was still the CEO at the time this statement was made. source: We feed the world (documentary)
- roel_v 13y agoOf course not, understanding nuanced statements is hard, let's just hear whatever we want to hear when somebody who we don't like is making a complex point! Down with The Man!
- blumkvist 13y agoGiven their... let's say controversial history, I find it pretty alarming that he wants control over the world's water supply. Don't you?
- sambeau 13y agoAlso a good read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott
- ig1 13y agoYou realize your smartphone almost certainly has metals mined or processed by children in dangerous and unhealthy work environments ?
- mistercow 13y agoYikes, and also probably your computer, and possibly your car. And I was having such a nice morning. Now I feel like I need to work out how much money I need to give to an effective charity or something to offset the bad that I'm doing when I buy my next phone or computer.
- derefr 13y agoKeep in mind that as long as you're driving the economy (by production or consumption), you're enabling whatever pre-existing incentive-structures the economy supports. $5 of vegan bread gives the grocery store five more dollars, which it will then use to pay that loss-leader butchery that brings in the saturday shoppers, etc. Putting $1.50 in a vending machine to buy a Nestle-competitor's product, results in the vending machine company renewing Nestle's contract either way (because they're the draw), that competitor paying Nestle $0.40 for pre-processed milk-chocolate product, and Nestle spending $0.40 more not to market their products to you (they assume you a lost cause), but rather to your children directly. ...Or, in micro-econ terms, if you pay me $5 for vegan bread, I'll spend that $5 on several kit-kats (I am, after all, craving them now), and put some away to save up for a new phone. You've effectively multiplied the harm you're doing! It's the same general argument as "a portion of every tax dollar goes to killing brown people", but escaping the economy entirely is actually harder than plain-old tax evasion. Basically, voting with your wallet only sways sole proprietors; anything larger may be externally capitalist, but is internally more socialist/syndicalist, driven by long-term contracts, quotas, "consumer confidence" ratings, futures, government certifications, and insurance-risk-purchases more than hard revenue. All that is opaque to you as a consumer, so there's really no way to influence any entrenched player by purposefully tugging on money-strings. They've purchased entire portfolios to hedge against precisely that effect!
- 13y ago
- opminion 13y agoRather than "truly horrible", it's fairer to say that it's controversial in the UK. For example, on one hand there has been a long standing boycott at university Student Unions, on the other about everybody has a Nescafé tin at home.
- RobAley 13y ago"Truly Horrible" isn't mutually exclusive with "everybody has a Nescafé tin at home". Also, it's not just controversial in the UK, it is in many countries, and it's not just Student Unions that have held boycotts against it. I'm also not saying that it's in anyway alone in being a truly horrible company, there are many others in that category as well.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoI for one don't have any Nescafé tins at home and refuse to purchase any of their chocolate or breakfast cereals, too. I realise you said "about", and I'm only one person, but I think you overestimate their reach; I know others who adopt the same stance. I'd go so far as to say that Nestlé are up there alongside The Sun (british newspaper) and Sky TV when it comes to 'most boycotted' here in the UK. Only time will tell whether Google has made a minor PR error here (granted, it will only be minor because Google is SO pervasive).
- Joeboy 13y agoThe name Nestlé is a byword for baby murder for a significant number of people I know. I was surprised to see Google deliberately associating themselves with them.
- garethadams 13y ago> I'd go so far as to say that Nestlé are up there alongside The Sun (british newspaper) and Sky TV when it comes to 'most boycotted' here in the UK Given that The Sun is the most circulated paper in the UK [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Unite...] and Sky TV claims to reach 1 in 6 people in the UK [http://corporate.sky.com/media/key_facts_and_figures http://corporate.sky.com/media/key_facts_and_figures] I would completely agree with your statement that the Nestlé boycott is as effective as these others.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoI think, if anyone was still labouring under the intention that Google was somehow morally 'above' other companies, this is pretty much the death-knell. If I'm being very optimistic / fair to Google, I'd hope that it was a Google US decision and they don't fully comprehend the feeling towards Nestle in the UK. Maybe this leaves a void for a 'good' technology company to spring up.
- phaedryx 13y agoInteresting aside, it is made by Hersey in the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitkat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitkat