Waitrose, don't you know people are laughing at you?

Yet again, Waitrose is the butt of online jokes and viral posts about their extremely middle to upper class take on an 'Essentials' range. And it's hardly surprising when a basketful of Essential range items in this supermarket could include tinned artichoke hearts, bumper packs of avocadoes and rosemary and sea salt focaccia. It's like every night is dinner at Downton Abbey.

It's hardly the first time the joke has been on Waitrose. The Facebook page 'Overheard in Waitrose' posts amusing quotes such as this one heard in the Harborne branch: "this is disgusting, they've run out of fresh lemongrass and dried lemongrass is just the worse." With 342,693 likes (14/10/2014) and press representation, and probably a high level of shares, this is another example of how the word of mouth buzz about Waitrose is that of amusement.

In 2012, Waitrose's twitter campaign, 'Why I shop at Waitrose...' was hijacked by jokers who instead of talking about the quality of the food wrote quips such as "I shop at Waitrose because Clarissa's pony just will not eat ASDA value straw." Waitrose's management did respond to the tweets with:

Waitrose @waitrose: "Thanks for all the genuine and funny waitrosereasons tweets.We always like to hear what you think and enjoyed reading most of them."

They can take a joke (just about) but who wants to be the brand that is always mocked? And why put yourself in the firing lane repeatedly? Brands need to know who their target market is and how they should be positioning themselves, but sister organisation John Lewis manages to promote itself effectively without its campaigns being hijacked or its product ranges ridiculed.

This is not about whispering in the playground. Social media is accessible to read by customers, competitors and brands themselves. There is no excuse not to know what the buzz is about you. Social media monitoring and environmental scanning is time consuming but an essential part of the marketing planning process. Addictomatic is just one free tool that shows you the buzz about any brand online: http://addictomatic.com/topic/waitrose. You can examine instantly what customers think about you or your competitors and if you're not getting it right, you can adjust the tone or approach to your communications or your use of the marketing mix.

Be proud of what your brand values are Waitrose, and laugh at yourself if you wish - it is a British trait after all, but don't be a running joke if you have no control over the punchline.