No I don’t. I adore saying I told you so.
In the recent hubub over at Whole Foods Market, It looks like there’s now a trackable and dramatic drop in brand perception of Whole Foods, directly traceable to the vocal outburst from customers angry about CEO John Mackey’s Wall Street Journal editorial. Check out the stats over at Mashable’s As Whole Foods Boycott Grows on Facebook, Brand Perception Drops. But here’s the lowdown:
[I]t’s hard not to attribute at least some of the drop in consumer perception to the vocal Facebook (Facebook) group that has emerged in the aftermath of the CEO’s Wall Street Journal op-ed. Should YouGov’s research be as accurate as it claims to be, then Whole Foods definitely needs to be concerned about this social media backlash that’s negatively impacting consumer opinion.
Fair Food Fight theorized that this backlash/boycott was coming from Whole Foods’ core shoppers, a group of “trendsetters” and influencers in the natural foods community. Because these shoppers tend to have a huge impact on the market at large, it stands to reason that their outrage would also have an impact.
Don’t weather this one with stoic resolve, Whole Foods. It’s damage control time.
