It was the summer of brand scandals — but not because marketers are suddenly more accident-prone.
The reason: the internet has become highly attuned to brand missteps and apt to turn them into full-blown crises.
This weekend, Hyrox was plunged into a reputational emergency after an athlete soiled herself during a race and was allowed to continue, sparking a wave of online complaints about hygiene. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen Good Good’s bad ad scandal, Neutrogena taking heat over its alleged treatment of Hayden Panettiere, and Target apologizing for stocking an offensive Halloween costume.
Each scandal had its nuance, but they all followed a similar pattern: An incident became social media fodder, spread like wildfire, and forced the brand to respond.
Here’s my theory on why stories about brand misfires feel so frenetic.
A lot of people are feeling lousy at the moment. Anxious about how to make your next mortgage payment, or whether AI might displace your job? Weighing in on a brand drama can offer a cathartic form of escapism with an added dopamine hit of moral superiority. And it only takes a few seconds.
“Online media has made it exceptionally easy for everyone to share their hot takes, and this is happening faster than ever,” said Linda Boff, the former longtime CMO of GE, who now leads the marketing agency Said Differently.
Meanwhile, creators are under pressure to constantly churn out content in the hope of lighting up the algorithms. Recognizable brands provide the perfect raw material for the internet’s commentary class — especially if a celebrity is involved. Online outrage offers a ready-made hook, as brand scandals have become their own genre of low-stakes drama.
The stakes feel excruciatingly high for CMOs in the middle of a frenzy, though.
Marketers — and even CEOs — have lost their jobs when the heat got too much for their companies.
Scenario planning and constant monitoring are crucial.
“There’s a much lower bar for intervention and a much higher necessity of sussing things out on Reddit and others before you really catch fire,” Richard Edelman, of the PR firm Edelman, told me in an interview earlier this year. “You have to be much quicker now to intervene and not sit and wait.”
A June report from social intelligence firm Sprout Social, based on a survey of 2,250 consumers, found 64% wanted brands to respond publicly to a crisis on social media rather than through a press release or website statement. The speed of that response also influenced how consumers felt about the brand.
“Before issuing a response, pause to analyze the trajectory. Is the story gaining momentum and threatening long-term trust, or is it already burning itself out?” said Sprout Social CMO Scott Morris.
If it’s escalating, speed matters just as much as the response, and hesitation can carry its own reputational risk, Morris added. However, stepping into an already waning discussion can give the news cycle a second wind, he said.
It’s important for CMOs to look beyond raw engagement numbers and assess whether the overwhelming sentiment in online discussions warrants stepping in.
American Eagle CMO Craig Brommers was unwavering when the brand’s “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” campaign sparked accusations that the ad was a subtle nod to eugenics. The company opted not to apologize, addressed the issue head-on with a statement, and later credited the campaign in driving “unprecedented new customer acquisition.”
It’s a case study in why initial numbers purporting to show a groundswell of social media outrage don’t always tell the full story. A report from Cyabra, a narrative intelligence firm, later found 15% of the TikTok accounts commenting on the backlash were “fake profiles.”
“The important thing for a CMO to remember in those particular times is to look at hard facts as opposed to just listening to social media and the mainstream media,” Brommers told Business Insider earlier this year. “What we saw was business growth.”
While there are notable exceptions, the lasting impact of an online backlash on a brand is often short-lived, however intense it feels for marketers in the moment. The Axios Harris Poll 100, which surveys consumers about brands, found that more than half of the companies measured improved their reputation scores this year compared with last — including many that had endured recent scandals.
If you happen to be a marketer caught up in a news cycle about an ad campaign that touched a nerve, some time-honored marketing principles still hold.
“If a campaign is rooted in the DNA of a brand, it’s much easier to stand firm, but when a brand can’t explain why they let a campaign go through, it shows the marketing team doesn’t understand what they stand for in the first place,” Boff said.
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