Noka sells extremely expensive chocolate. The brand promise is based on exclusivity and purity of their product. And then this article came out on dallasfood.org questioning their misleading marketing and revealing how these products are actually created. Shortly after it was referred to on Boing Boing and the word-of-mouth quickly stormed on the internet.

It appears Noka hired a ‘crisis communication’ consultant who started posting on many discussion boards and blogs to defend Noka. Of course, his identity is discovered to total discredit of the Noka brand.

There are many things to learn here for the marketers. Deception in marketing has a high risk in today’s opinion-connected world.