UnSelling: The New Customer Experience

Chapter 47Your Community Is an Allen Key

The amazing thing about having a brand community is their devotion and willingness to defend you without being asked. Combine that with the number one demographic you do not want to mess with—breast-feeding moms—and it's like having all of the Scots from Braveheart standing on a mountain ready to defend you.

I experienced this firsthand when I posted to the UnMarketing Facebook page¹ a link to a news story about a woman claiming to have been shamed for breast-feeding in a Ottawa, Ontario, at Ikea. Usually, when I see a story from a “real” news station or newspaper site, I assume it has been confirmed and verified, so I didn't think twice about sharing it, knowing full well the outrage that would result in the comments.

But what happened surprised me.

A lot of the comments came out with disbelief: They just couldn't see that happening at an Ikea. People refused to believe a brand/store known for their support of new moms and breast-feeding would act this way. You have to understand that I post brand train wrecks almost daily on that Facebook page, and I've never had this kind of response—questioning the validity of the story—as I did here.

True enough, a few days later, Ikea came out with a statement saying they had reviewed all security footage and interviewed all employees involved and found out that not only had the customer not shopped during the time claimed but when she actually had entered the store and during the duration of her ...