mars bars stay vegetarian

It's a campaign success story. The company who make Mars Bars in the UK announced that they were going to change their Mars recipe so that it included animal products. The Vegetarian Society freaked out, and organised a campaign to get Mars to stay vego. In one week, over 6,000 people phoned and emailed the company to complain. It worked.

Here's what the company had to say:

"The consumer is our boss and we had lots of feedback from consumers who were unhappy about the change," Ms Dawson said.

"It became very clear, very quickly that we had made a mistake, for which I am sorry.

"There are three million vegetarians in the UK and not only did we disappoint them, but we upset a lot of the consumers."

When we're dealing with big companies, they do listen to consumers, but it's got to be a concerted, concentrated effort.

How did they do it?
1. They kept it simple, and they had one clear ask.
2. It was tied into an event that was already happening -- National Vegetarian Week, so it gave people a focus for that week.
3. They didn't ask people to do too much or do anything too complicated. There were 3 simple things that people could do.

> Ask your MP to sign an early day motion.
It's good because it's not just talk to your MP, it's ask to MP to do something specific. Then they have really good tips about contacting your MP, including what to do if they say yes or no to the request. At the bottom of the page, they link you to the next page, which is the next thing that you can do.
>Write a letter to your local paper
>Email masterfoods on their customer feedback form, or phone their customer service line.