Recently, Nestlé Waters North America reached a favorable settlement with class action plaintiffs contesting the marketing and quality of Poland Spring water. The settlement stipulates, among other things, that the water is properly advertised as spring water and meets all the various requirements for that designation.

However, Poland Spring's PR strategy is not the one I would have chosen. In addition to defending its water, the company also chose to make frivolous and dishonest class action lawsuits a theme of its response. The logic was: there have been many absurd class action lawsuits; therefore, this one is absurd as well.

A communications staffer with Nestlé explained to me that if people see that someone is sued, they assume the allegations are true. I don't agree with this in the case of Poland Spring, a brand with enormous amounts of goodwill, stemming from its folksy TV commercial jingle ("Poland Spring, coming to you straight from Maine...") and unquestioned status as a quality beverage. By turning the agenda to class action lawsuits generally and not the quality of its water, Poland Spring increased suspicion instead of enhancing its image.

Many class action suits are idiotic and deplorable, especially what you see in the cascade of law firm press releases after any publicly traded company misses its earnings projections. But here, Poland Spring had all the tools it needed for a winning image restoration campaign. Turning attention to wasteful class action lawsuits generally was a plausible strategy employed in the wrong situation.