The Amul – Neha Tomar war on Facebook has now been picked by most of the online publishing houses making it a viral discussion on social media. The controversy that started from 9/10th October has seen support for both parties. Neha has a bunch of supporters patting her back since she took up the case while a bunch of supporters have loved the positive and detailed response from Amul India in this case. However, there are some missing links in this story that still remain unanswered.
On the 10th of this month Neha had posted some pictures of Amul Gold milk that were scary to view, forget drinking. The post went viral with close to 10K shares on Facebook and people raising questions on quality of the milk and other products by Amul.
Amul India came back on the 14th with a fighting reply saying that the milk had already passed its “use by date” and finally stated that the customer was raising a false case with intentions to malign the brand online. The reply from Amul fetched more than 2K shares and a lot of cheer from fans.
Read the detailed story about the Amul and Neha Tomar Facebook war here.
However, over the days some more interesting facts have surfaced. Lighthouse Insights (LI) had been keeping a close eye on the developments; with the case settling now we are left with three unanswered questions on the entire drama of customer vs brand on social media.
1. Did Amul edit the Facebook screenshots to provide as evidence?
On 14th Amul had stated that Neha had played with the date of her Facebook post. According to Amul, Neha had consumed the sour milk on 10th but she posted about it a day before and later she had changed the date. “It may be noted that Ms Neha posted her grievance on her Facebook page on 9th October, a day prior to her informing us about the same. Our officials asked the customer that if she has faced the problem on 10th Oct, how is it possible for you to post the same on 9th on Facebook? We now see that the timing of her post has been changed to 10th.”
To support the claim Amul posted two screenshots of Neha’s post to gain support for its claim. See both the screenshots carefully.
The screen grab dated 9th has three major problems –
1. The post has no icon with whom the post has been shared in this case the globe icon as it was a public post. Whenever you post content on Facebook, you share with Public, Friends, Friends of Friends or private. In all cases Facebook associates the post with an icon to tell with whom the post has been shared. The post on 9th has no such icon which is clearly not possible. Look at the 10th post, it has the globe icon stating it was a Public post.
2. The 9th post states “feeling mad” but misses out the emoticon Facebook provides which is again not possible. Check the 10th post the emoticon is present there.
3. The text – “added 4 new photos”, “feeling mad” and the date should be in grey since it is how Facebook works, the screen grab for 9th October has it all black.
Clear indications that Amul edited the post otherwise it isn’t possible to post on Facebook by Neha.
2. Why Amul no more holds Neha’s office responsible?
The second major change is the change in tone from Amul on social media. On 14th when it posted the reply on Facebook at 15:16 the allegations on Neha were loud and bold. Amul was desperate to prove its point and in this aggression it said some things it should have not said. Later Amul realized it’s mistake and made two edits on the post, Facebook shows you the edited changes in its post.
Amul quietly removed the portion where it had stated that Neha is using office property and Amul will hold her office responsible too – “It may be also noted that the consumer has been misusing her office to publicize this story on Amul. We hope that she has informed her office regarding the same as we shall hold her office too responsible for her actions.”
Now the edited version looks like – “We do not understand that why the consumer used her official position to make such complaint without knowing the fact.”
The other big change Amul did was removing the malafide allegations bit. “But till time of posting this, it has not been updated with correct information. This clearly reflects that she has malafide intentions. Also, the facts have been carefully concealed by her to generate and sustain the hype.”
The edited version now looks like – “But till time of posting this, it has not been updated with correct information. Also, the facts have been carefully concealed by her to generate and sustain the hype.”
Amul still states in the ending para that it was a deliberate attempt by the customer to use an expired milk to malign the brand.
But what made Amul change its strong stance and mellow down a bit? Was it Neha’s work association or the outburst of her supporters in the comments. We had stated earlier that Amul’s claim on Neha misusing her office to publicize the story lacks evidence. Amul did not elaborate on it but it is interesting to note that Neha is a Senior Legal Officer at Public Health Foundation of India.
3. Why Neha ignored Amul’s allegation of editing her post on her Facebook reply
The last and the most important missing link in this story is the response from Neha on the entire matter. After the allegations made by Amul, Neha on the 15th shared her frustration in which she accused Amul of smartly molding the case and blaming her.
After reading the post I find it a bit odd that Neha has not said a word on Amul’s allegation of her misrepresenting facts and using the office property to hype the case. Two big allegations and Neha chose not to respond on any of them instead she said that she has done good to the society. “I have timely updated what happened when and i have no fears. I have done good to society and at-least to my family and friends by spreading this awareness. I would also not deny the effort done by Amul to visit me and addressing the issue. But the way they have posted the ending of the issue is totally wrong and molded for flavoring them. Earn trust of consumers by being true and polite to them. This is all I have to say.”
Besides her silence on both allegations make Amul a hero in this story and her the bad guy. LI tried connecting with Neha but we haven’t heard from her on the same. For now it looks like Amul and Neha have left the matter to die down; strangely user posts on Amul’s Facebook brand page are no more visible. The questions still remain unaswered. If you’ve got the answers then do share with us in the comments.