Nutelladay.com Case Study: When Customers really take the power

Nutella is one of the most powerfull brand I know. It is quite often taken as an example on how strong branding can leverage high revenues. Despite some contreversy, especially linked to the use of palm oil in its recipe, people still love Nutella. Actually, Nutella is known for its vast group of fans, making it a great topic for tribe and social marketing guru.

Nevertheless, an article caught my attention about a recent story. Nutelladay.com is a website created by fans of the product in 2007, which were working on creating a Nutella Day to celebrate the product. In 2014, Ferrero, the producer of Nutella, decided to shut down the website, for no official reasons. My guess is that Ferrero wanted to take over the control of this popular website which became with the time a reference about their product. 

But social media and the Internet in overall has changed the game. When you have such a popular brand, it is nearly impossible to control how people use your brand for either positive messages (which was the case for Nutelladay.com) or negative (which is the case for activists against palm oil).

What is funny is that Nutella has such a high asset with its group of fans hooked to its product, but because of old corporate reflex they tried what they could to stop it to gain control.

What do you think about it?