What Would You Do?

Great post, Josh. Glad to see you back and hope you’re well.

It will be interesting to see the students grapple with this one.

I think this is a good example of how a blog can provide both positive benefits as well as negative criticism. The blog gave the grocer a chance to become known across the U.S. It also was beneficial in that it provided the grocer’s customers different recipes and allowed them to reconnect with a part of the small town’s heritage if they had moved away to a big city. It’s unfortunate that these positive aspects of the blog were followed by negative criticism from a huge national advocacy group.
The grocer can be sure that he is not going to be able to persuade the national advocacy group that the old-style butcher shop is acceptable since they have already started a campaign protesting the store. The grocer’s best bet is to make sure that he has support from all his customers saying that they like the old-style butcher shop and that people in this small town want to keep the “charm” of having an old butcher shop in the store. If the grocer has his town supporting him, maybe there is a possibility that the advocacy group will drop the campaign against him.

I think that the grocer has nothing to worry about. The grocer already has its support from their local community along with the tradition and history of the store. Also, since it is a locally owned and run grocery store he does not have to worry about the threat of losing business to other competition in such a small town. The national advocacy group that is attacking the local grocery store is just waiting for a corporate business to attack and once that happens the local business should be fine.

I loved the idea of the grocer making a blog for his business. It is a great way to connect with the community and have a way of hearing what people have to say and what they think. The negative part of having the blog is bringing up the butcher and the visitors that claim the blog is doing nothing but bringing negativity into the scene. This is bound to happen in any blogs or in any community. Every person is going to have an opinion whether it is positive or negative, as long as they get to say what is on their mind. I think the grocer has already established a well respected attitude with the town. People know him and his business and know what he is about. He shouldn’t worry about the threats or negative comments that are going around. Even though it is hard to do this, I think he has made his way and should stand his ground. Soon enough, the bad stuff will die down and his business will continue to thrive like it has before.

The blog for the local grocer is an excellent idea. With any blog there are going to be people who agree and disagree with things that are said or in this case done. The local grocer should not worry because most small town businesses that have been around for a long time have the backing of the entire community. They have a stronger base than the national advocacy group that has thousands of members across the nation. There is not much that the grocer can do to respond to the advocacy group. He is not going to change their minds and they certainly are going to make him change the way he runs his business. The owner should not worry because it is not his customers who are against his store. Sooner or later the advocacy group will find a bigger issue and the grocer will go back to business as usual.

I don’t think the grocer can take on the national advocacy group. He doesn’t need to worry about it. I don’t think he has the resources or the funds to launch a rebuttal campaign back at the group. The grocer is doing something positive for HIS community. Obviously the people of that community enjoy the charm of an old fashioned butchers shop, or he wouldn’t be in business anymore. This grocer is catching up with the times and enabling his community to stay in touch with the store and each other. He doesn’t need to worry about this national group, they will find someone bigger and louder to attack soon and they will forget about the butcher in the small town who started a blog for a good cause.

This is a great example of how a blog can work to your advantage but can also throw you into an issue management situation. In my opinion, you have to evaluate the situation and weigh out the potential damage that the animal rights organization could do to your business. In this case I do not believe that it would be necessary for the local grocer to take on the animal rights organization. The local store has an established base of customers that are probably aware that the store has a butcher shop. As far as business is concerned, I don’t think that the grocer will see any significant loss of profits. I believe it would be in the grocer’s best interest to address the issue briefly on the blog and reassure their trusted customers that the quality of products and service at the store will remain the same.

If anything, I feel that this will bring more people to the grocer’s blog. His customers obviously do not have a problem with having a butcher shop, and I can’t imagine that people would turn against him because of an animal rights activists group. If more people found out about this site, I feel that more people would visit it because it seems like a great idea. Soon, the activist group will find another target and the negative publicity will subside. The grocer will come out ahead because more people now know about the site.

I think it was a wonderful idea to start a blog about the local grocery store. I can imagine this is a small town so this could also put them on the map, so to speak. However the more I think about what could go wrong, I remember the “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign started by PETA in 2002.

PETA had a nationally hated “art” exhibit in which they hung gigantic posters of slaughtered animals next to graphic pictures of Nazi death camps. This got so extreme, they even compared some animal slaughterhouses to Auschwitz. You have to keep in mind that most of these types of groups believe that killing any animal is morally equivalent to killing a human being.

Animal rights groups, like PETA, have also been known to damage thousands of dollars of property in seconds. I’m sure you’ve all heard that paint and runway models wearing fur don’t mix well. This makes me wonder whether this local grocer should stand up to this group at all. I think he should try to explain that he is trying to please his community and if they voted to expel the butcher shop then he would remove it. With the backing of the surrounding community, this may give the grocer enough time for the whole thing to blow over.

If it were me…hmmm. This is a tough one, so I’ll start with what I wouldn’t do: I wouldn’t stop blogging and allow the animal rights activists to bully me right out of something that my customers love. That’s for sure. I also wouldn’t fight them. Wade is right; animal rights people can be some of the most vicious protestors. But I also wouldn’t take the situation too lightly. Although I would be very surprised if an animal rights protest actually swayed local patrons to stop shopping at the store, complete ignorance of the problem could make me the grocer appear guilty.
So, perhaps one response could be to post bios of store employees on the blog site, including one of the butcher. It could present him as a loving family man with pets, an animal lover (in a perfect world maybe he would volunteer at the animal shelter). This won’t quiet the activists, but it might make customers feel better. Another response might be to include a health section on the site, including information about the benefits of protein from meat and information about vegetarian diets to make them feel included as well.
I think one of the best things you can do in this situation is continue to keep customers happy and feeling valued. By greeting customers personally, making sure items are in stock, hiring friendly, respectful employees and creating an overall store atmosphere that makes grocery shopping enjoyable and beats every other place in town, the grocer will be able to overcome the negative criticism and keep customers.

Gosh that’s hard. I don’t know how I would handle that, it seems so unfair. As the grocer, I think the first thing I would do would be to make sure the entire community was aware of what was going on. I would want to make sure I had the whole community’s support. Then I guess I would try and launch my own ‘campaign’ against the attacking one. With input from my community, I would emphasize the significance of an “old fashioned” butcher shop. It’s so rare to have them and I think it gives us a taste of how things use to be. In all reality, I don’t think the shop would be shut down because it’s just like any other meat shop. How else are we going to get meat products? It would definitley be hard to go up against a national campaign, but I think the thing that would be most effective would be the community support. Then, people from all over the country who support the classic grocery store would hopefully chime in and help support it.

It seems that my opinion is a combination of my classmate’s comments. I would have to say that the grocer should not stop blogging. It is a great idea and something that is unique to that town. But when it comes to the animal rights group, you would have to have the support of your surrounding community. Animal rights protestors are vicious, passionate and don’t give up easily. You can’t stand up to them alone. The idea of a campaign supporting the “old style” butcher shop is a great idea, but one that would have to be thought about carefully, because what is used in the campaign to promote the grocery store could be twisted and used by the protestors against the store. Realistically you have to think about the kind of people animal rights protestors “stereotypically” are, and there’s a good chance they won’t give up easily. But a campaign promoting the store could be just the thing to get the protestors to back off a little bit.

This was a tough one, and I wanted to give a lot of thought as to what I would do if I were in the grocer’s situation. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone knows what they would do until they were to walk a mile in the grocer’s shoes. I agree with my classmates, I would not stop blogging, it’s a great way to communicate with the community and let people know that your business is out there. It may also be effective in promoting the store’s incentives, such as coupons and the like. If I were attacked by an animal rights group I don’t think I would try to backlash, in other words, I wouldn’t go on the attack, instead I would explain to the community that I understood their worries, but that I was just trying to run a business. However, I respect their concerns and choices not to buy meat products at my store. I would also try to remind the public what the store brought to the community, such as jobs, revenue and their food supply.

I do agree with my classmates that the grocer should not stop blogging. His blog site has benefited the people in the community, allowing them to share ideas, recipes and stories about the grocery store’s history. The grocer has found a way to utilize a new communication tool to better serve his customers.

Then as the animal rights activists come along, it suddenly seems the grocer has to cater to their needs, when he is simply trying to serve his local community.

I feel the grocer should try and stick to his ground and do the best he can to not let the animal activist group get in the way of his business. I do understand this may be easier said than done, especially since animal rights groups tend to be persistent. But maybe with the help of the local community, the grocer can fight back and preserve his historical grocery store.

Overall, I think there are many companies in America that have to deal with outside activist groups who are against the way that particular company runs their business. There is always going to be someone who does not agree with what you are doing, and you just can’t let those people stop you.

This is a hard situation, but I would hope this could pull the local community together and they could all support the grocer.

“How can this lone grocer take on a national advocacy group with thousands of networked members?”

By engaging thousands of netword people that like meat.

“What do you do?”

My advice to the grocer would be to…

- Use the weblog as a listening post; not enough emphasis is placed on listening as a function of blogging. All too often, the PR function is concerened with the outbound message and little effort is given to the art of listening. Oddly enough, well crafted blog posts serve as a better listening post (pun intended) than a broadcast medium. Instead of telling your audience what you think - ask them questions - there’s nothing wrong with blog posts that solicit more feedback than they offer in terms of content.

- Shape your business and your outbound PR message based on feedback from your blog - even the negative comments. While most comments here seem to suggest the local grocer has no problems with this sort of negative campaign - I disagree. The brand equity of this business is being affected because the brand identity itself is being tested and reshaped in the minds of their customers - locally and regionally. It’s important that blog and non-blog listening lead to new actionable steps that shape the brand identity in positive ways.

- Address negative commentary about your brand. Transparent companies tend to absorb negative comments better and transform negative events into a positive outcomes. Blogging provides a great opportiunity to fight fire with love (e.g., LoveMarks - the Future Beyond Brands).

The grocer definitely made a smart decision by joining the blog world. The only problem is that when you put yourself out there, you don’t always get just good press. When you publish information about your business in a blog on the internet, you open the doors for all sorts of scrutiny.
Although the grocer is being hounded by these animal advocacy groups, he can use this opportunity to learn about some problems that his customers may have. If the fact that he still has an old fashioned butcher shop is hindering his success as a business owner, maybe it is the time to use this information to make a change. If the butcher shop is not a problem, and it is up to code, then he can use this information to let the public know why the butcher shop is safe. He can use his blog to discuss in more detail why the butcher shop is ok, or even discuss the steps he is willing to take to make it better.

Although the grocer is now bombarded with negative postings, his blog established national awareness of his independently-owned store. That publicity alone outweighs the activists’ comments regarding his butcher department. The grocer’s existing customers will not be swayed by national animal rights extremists who did not support the shop in the first place or have any involvement in the small rural community. Just as the grocer’s blog garnered positive press, he should realize the activists have a right to their opinion and must learn to ignore their malicious comments.

Praise to this small town grocer for diving into social media to better communicate with its’ public and for wanting to provide its’ customers and non-customers with fun information for their use, not just to advertise themselves. However, with all good things there is a bad side, but if handled properly the bad thing will not take away from the good. The best thing for this local grocer to do is immediately respond and acknowledge these negative comments from national animal right activists. It is up to the grocer on how exactly to target and respond to these criticisms; one way that may be helpful would be to for them to publish an article reporting that they acknowledge and respect national animal rights, but also maybe publish or list the benefits and positives of meat nutritionally. The grocer would also need to be sure that they don’t over advertise meat, but to be sure to advertise ALL of their items: bread, pastas, vegetables- these are the items that the animal right activists would be eating! The grocer could also have a recipe page just for vegetarians with products from their store. These techniques combined with several others over time may be able to downsize the negative comments coming in from animal rights activists while also increasing “the buzz”, positive attention and business of the grocery store. Thanks for the challenging question with interesting information!

Now that I have been in the blogging world for some time now, I would like to re-visit the topic and give some different feelings on the subject.

Earlier in the year I mentioned that the grocery store owner should buy his time, so to speak, and just let the whole instance blow over. This is definately what he should not do. I now think he should take the time to address ANY negative comments about his grocery store and why it is that he has a butcher.

I do think he needs to keep the support of the surrounding community and seeing as how the residents enjoy the blog and get valuable information from it, it is necessary for the groccery store owner to keep the blog up and running.

The owner should also not put too much emphasis on replying to comments as he should a listening post. Addressing every comment that came his way would be too time consuming. We have to remember that this blog is a way for him to make the business better for his customers.

Even though I read this post over seven months after it was posted, it was still very interesting to me. I loved the idea of the grocer starting a blog and connecting with a new market or old customers. It’s unfortunate that it caused some negative press, but with all media related moves there is always an increased chance that someone will see something they don’t like. The point is that someone like the advocacy group saw his blog. If someone like that group can find his blog and object to it, then someone who supports his small-town store also be able to find it. Thanks for the story and making me think about how to respond!!