Kellogg’s Facebook rail stunt item pulled after outcry

Post by Steven Cox on 3rd February 2012
 in Retail, Social media

Cereal giant Kellogg's has been forced to pull an item from the Facebook page for its Krave brand, after it appeared to endorse a dangerous railway line stunt.

The company was at the centre of a storm of protest, especially as it coincided with a court case which saw Network Rail admit liability over the deaths of two teenage girls at a level crossing in Elsenham, Essex in 2005.

Olivia Bazlinton, 14, and 13-year-old Charlotte Thompson, died when they were hit by a train on the crossing.

The Kellogg's post was in the form of a link to a YouTube video which showed a man looking as though he is standing on a railway line, facing an oncoming train.

It added the comment: "How cool is this! Krave would definitely receive chocolate with a stunt like this!"

While the video is obviously a fake, and the man is not standing on the track, it quickly attracted a storm of derision, and was taken down.

Writing on advertising sector magazine Brand Republic's Wall blog, Gordon McMillan said that the remark was "exactly the kind of careless piece of posting that could cause major damage to Kellogg’s and damage to its social reputation."

He added that it could easily cost the company many of the 180,000 fans it had accumulated on Facebook.

MacMillan's post elicited a remorseful response from Kellogg's UK PR team, who wrote: "We didn't mean to cause offense [sic] and we've removed the video. It was a mistake – we're now looking into how this happened."