Waitrose loses its grip on slippery fish

‘Slippery’, ‘fish’ and ‘fillet’ – do these make you think upmarket grocer Waitrose? Probably not, but according to YouGov’s social media analysis tool, SoMA, these were the three most popular words mentioned alongside Waitrose on Twitter on 7 June.

These three words were also primarily responsible for a significant increase in Waitrose’s Twitter activity on that day. On 6 June just 1.9% of the Twitter population were exposed to a mention of Waitrose, compared to 9.9% the following day.

By looking at the verbatim comments on 7 June, we can see that an article appearing in the Independent reporting that Waitrose staff refused to fillet a fish because it was “too slippery” was at the root of the spike in social media activity.

While a number of the tweets (examples below) mocked Waitrose staff, it nevertheless demonstrates the need for brands to act quickly and decisively before negative PR stories such as this go viral.

‘Trout of order: Waitrose staff refuse to fillet fish for customer... because it was too slippery’

‘Waitrose staff not able to fillet trout 'cause they're too slippery!! (fish not staff)’

Waitrose has since apologised for the incident, but this shows how seemingly minor incidents – particularly those picked up by the media on a slow news day – can spread much further on social media than they likely would if they were confined to the pages of a single broadsheet.

Learn more about SoMA

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