So, less than a week after completing its acquisition of Cadbury, and having promised, during the bidding process, to reverse Cadbury’s decision to close its Bristol based factory, Kraft announces that the Somerdale plant, is, after all, to close.
Not a huge surprise for the commercially minded, the pragmatists and the cynics amongst us, but a bit of a bombshell for the 400 workers at the factory whose hopes, over the last few months have been raised and dashed again and again.
Unite’s Jennie Formby is quoted as saying that Kraft’s “dishonesty” was a concern for the future relationship between the company and Cadbury workers.
But how much consumer trust and respect will be lost to the Kraft brand as a result of this very sharp U turn? As PR practitioners are fond of saying, it takes a long time to build a brand, and a very short time to destroy it. And sometimes, just sometimes, I can’t help thinking that the short term commercial drivers should be weighed up more carefully against the potential long term damage done by over promising and under delivering.