Sometimes, the business world gets it so badly wrong it’s difficult to know whether to laugh or cry out in frustration. Or just marvel at their naivety.
Back in the distant mists of time in October 1998, there was the classic PR catastrophe of BMW launching the new Rover 75 at the NEC Motor Show – and later that same day threatening to close Longbridge if productivity didn’t improve.
We have had Gerald Ratner’s ‘crap’ gaffe, the Royal Mail calling itself Consignia, the RBS takeover of ABN Ambro, and many others.
But whoever decided at Cadbury – sorry, Mondelez International – to chop Christmas parcels and cards to the chocolate maker’s 14,000 pensioners clearly didn’t think the whole thing through very carefully.
The UK President of Mondelez International (which sounds like a Mexican timeshare development rather than a snacks manufacturer) Maurizio Brusadelli has written to 14,000 Cadbury pensioners telling them the festive treats are being stopped, with a final one-off £15 voucher as compensation.
Mr Brusadelli cites the £326 million deficit in the pension fund as the rationale for the move, a shortfall the company is aiming to reduce by extra contributions of £30 million a year.
Estimates of the savings generated by cancelling the parcels and cards vary from £210,000 to £300,000, a huge sum to the average pensioner but a chocolate drop in the ocean of the vast pension deficit.
And, of course, there is the Irene Rosenfeld factor. The Kraft/Cadbury/Mondelez supremo earned a tasty £18.9 million last year, including a reported £6.6 milllion bonus for splitting the group into separate Mondelez and Kraft entities.
Nobody is doubting Ms Rosenfeld’s capabilities, but she could have personally picked up the tab for the Christmas parcels by donating a few days’ salary. The gesture would hardly have left her destitute.
After Kraft had already confused matters by swallowing up one of the great corporate names – Cadbury’s – into the Mondelez chocolate box, the Xmas hampers saga merely reinforces the impression of a firm which knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
