Nestlé tried to censor a Greenpeace KitKat parody — and made it go viral

In March 2010, Greenpeace released a viral video parodying a KitKat television commercial. In it, a man unwraps a KitKat to find a bloody orangutan finger. The message: Nestlé's palm oil supplier, Indonesia's Sinar Mas, was destroying rainforest and peatland, killing orangutans in the process.

Nestlé's response was to try to suppress the video. The company threatened legal action over trademark use and had the video removed from YouTube. The move triggered a textbook Streisand effect: the takedown drew far more attention than the original, and the video spread across social media with millions of additional views.

Greenpeace activists scaled Nestlé's London headquarters and hung a banner. Consumers flooded Nestlé's Facebook page. Within two months, Nestlé announced it would stop buying palm oil from suppliers linked to deforestation. The episode became a case study in how not to respond to a viral campaign.