In June 2012, The Montreal Gazette ran a story on accused murderer Luka Magnotta, that featured a photograph of him holding a can of Labatt Blue. Labatt freaked out, as they were worried about the damage that would be done to their brand of seeing their top-selling product being consumed by an infamous individual. Labatt asked the Gazette to remove the photo. The Gazette refused and so Labatt then sent a case-and-desist letter.

Things got hairy when the Globe and Mail picked up the letter and published it. Labatt’s brand was damaged as a result, as the public saw Labatt’s letter as an attempt to stifle the media. The irony was that nobody other than Labatt’s cared that Luka Magnotta was drinking Labatt Blue. Why wouldn’t he, it’s Canada’s best selling beer internationally (yeah I was a little surprised by this too).

Labatt was so worried about their brand they tried to “protect” the public from hearing any negativity that might be associated with their product. Turns out that people are a lot smarter than companies often give them credit for and can make informed decisions. Nobody was going to boycott Labatt because an accused criminal decided to drink a bottle of Labatt Blue in a photograph. However, people don’t like it when they find out a company is trying to stifle free press because said company doesn’t trust their audience.

To their credit, Labatt recognized their blunder and had the VP of Corporate Affairs write a guest column in the Globe and Mail. Labatt admitted had they simply trusted their customers to begin with and not tried to suppress the original photograph, the fallout would have been much less severe.

So what’s the moral here? Despite the sophistication of a social media department, with dedicated staff and fancy tools, a company’s social media efforts mean squat if they can’t trust their customers with respect. This rule is not difficult and most of us learned it as soon as we could walk and talk. What’s changed is how quickly this lack of respect can be communicated.

So, the next time you see someone you don’t like using your product, hold off an hitting the panic button and firing up the ol’ “social media crisis response unit” and ask yourself “Will anyone really give a rat’s behind that this douchebag is using my brand of (insert product name here)?” The answer is probably no, and if you DO respond make sure the cure isn’t worse than the disease.