PR night­mares: when com­plaints go viral

In the world of social media word spreads rapidly. Within hours a single post can attract the attention of millions of users around the world. A fast-paced climate like this can make or break a company’s rep­u­ta­tion, so social media managers need to stay vigilant on their online platforms and be able to respond quickly to their customers. If a complaint posted on a social media page is not dealt with im­me­di­ate­ly, it can cause ir­repara­ble harm to the company’s rep­u­ta­tion in no time at all. The countless social media cat­a­stro­phes that have occurred in recent years are proof of just how quickly damage can be done.

Negative reviews can spring up at any time, taking business owners by surprise. Used ever more fre­quent­ly, the term, ‘PR nightmare’ is a perfectly fitting term for this scenario. It sounds truly fright­en­ing, and for business owners, it can be. A viral social media post can tarnish a company’s rep­u­ta­tion for years.

However, this crisis can be avoided with a fast and ap­pro­pri­ate response. Read on for in­for­ma­tion about PR night­mares and how they typically occur, and discover some general guide­lines for crisis com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

‘PR nightmare’ is a term used within cor­po­ra­tions and the media to describe an em­bar­rass­ing event that creates a bad rep­u­ta­tion for a person, group, or business. Since the birth of social media, PR night­mares are in­creas­ing­ly caused by highly pub­li­cized comments from dis­sat­is­fied consumers. These viral posts are char­ac­ter­ized by highly emotional, using language that is ag­gres­sive or offensive, and their ability to spread through social media channels like wildfire.

The fact that internet users often resort to ag­gres­sive, vulgar, or openly prej­u­di­cial language in their online comments is generally at­trib­uted to the dis­in­hibit­ing effect of online com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Thanks to the perceived anonymity of the internet users often feel secure pub­lish­ing comments that would be un­ac­cept­able in a different setting.

If such viral posts target a specific person, this can become a form of cyber-bullying that includes various forms of defama­tion, ha­rass­ment, and assault against in­di­vid­u­als. If a user writes something online with the intention of dis­parag­ing or hu­mil­i­at­ing his or her target, the comment can be in­ter­pret­ed as hate speech and could be pun­ish­able by law in certain countries. While in the United States, such comments are protected under the First Amendment, in Canada, and across Europe, defam­a­to­ry posts like these can fall under ha­rass­ment, libel, or hate speech, and are therefore con­sid­ered criminal offenses.

PR night­mares don’t just happen; there is a cause at the root of each one. In the context of business, the most common triggers for a viral post include con­tro­ver­sial campaigns and practices, failures in com­mu­ni­ca­tion, defective products, or failing to meet the client’s ex­pec­ta­tions. Com­plaints that go viral usually center on dis­sat­is­fied customers or a reaction to an offensive or immoral action by the company. The process always starts with a single post or comment. Using dialog-oriented com­mu­ni­ca­tion channels, consumers can make their criticism visible to the public; this alone is an in­di­ca­tion of the power consumers have. With the company’s social media profiles on the front line, PR night­mares occur when a criticism gains traction with other members of the community voicing a similar opinion. When this happens, the situation can snowball rapidly, and within minutes, the original comment can gather the support of a large group of people. However, one of the biggest problems with viral social media posts is that comments can often drift from the subject of the original post, and honest criticism can descend into vicious and senseless attacks. Media coverage also plays a major role in the de­vel­op­ment of a PR nightmare. Without the media’s influence, a wave of negative comments can quickly be resolved, deleted, or forgotten without a great impact on the company or its com­mu­ni­ca­tion channels. However, these sit­u­a­tions become true night­mares for the company if the viral post catches the interest of the mass media. This will create ad­di­tion­al pressure for the addressee to respond to the criticism. Phase models can help to visualize the natural pro­gres­sion of a viral post. The social media mon­i­tor­ing company, BIG (Business In­tel­li­gence Group) divides the process into three phases; these mark the start, turning point and end of a viral complaint:

• Pre-phase: in the pre-phase, the volume of comments is at a normal level – the number and tone of the posts show no ab­nor­mal­i­ties.

• Acute phase: the acute phase is when the post begins to attract an unusually high number of negative comments. In this phase, the frequency of negative posts is at its highest. This often coincides with the post at­tract­ing the attention of the mass media, which draws even more attention to the viral post. If there are no further events that continue to provoke the public (i.e. failures in com­mu­ni­ca­tion), a downturn will occur bringing the acute phase to an end.

• Post phase: the post-phase is the aftermath of a PR nightmare. Even when the uproar begins to die down, and comments return to their normal rate, the fact remains: when something makes waves online, the evidence remains forever. 

PR night­mares are mostly driven by the sharp increase in critical comments during the acute phase, which is why these attacks are known for being so brutally ag­gres­sive. On social media platforms in par­tic­u­lar, protests and outrage can spread like wildfire. This means that topics can often be taken out of context and opinions can be biased. With the speed of online com­mu­ni­ca­tion, it is often im­pos­si­ble for the addressee to quell small waves of criticism before it turns into a tsunami. If an in­di­vid­ual targets a business with a grievance, it can gain support from other in­di­vid­u­als very quickly. This is known as the ‘David versus Goliath’ principle; this is where sup­pos­ed­ly weak in­di­vid­u­als rise up against large en­ter­prise that is perceived as overly powerful. PR night­mares can, therefore, occur without the company being at fault in any way.

At the 2012 Social Media Marketing Con­fer­ence, Swiss PR experts Barbara Schwede and Daniel Grad proposed a six-stage strategy for coping with PR night­mares. This so-called ‘Shitstorm Scale’ is something like a weather report, but for social media meltdowns. The scale offers companies a plan for assessing and dealing with the wave of criticism at every stage, from the quiet breeze of isolated negative comments to the howling wind of prolonged criticism, to the hurricane of negative attention from the viral post.

The long-term impact of a PR nightmare on a business’s rep­u­ta­tion is relative to the amount of negative comments received. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the se­ri­ous­ness of the incident and its long-term con­se­quences can be de­ter­mined by the per­sis­tence of the comments and the social media platform used.

• Number of comments: the se­ri­ous­ness of a PR nightmare can be estimated by comparing the number of negative comments to the normal number.

• Per­sis­tence: this refers to how long the backlash endures and includes viral social media posts, as well as comments on blog and websites and media attention. This factor is in­flu­enced by the internet platform as well as the avail­abil­i­ty of control fa­cil­i­ties.

• Relevance: the outreach and vis­i­bil­i­ty of the addressee have a great influence on whether or not the viral post has the potential to harm the business in the long term.

In 2005, the American blogger and jour­nal­ist Jeff Jarvis caused the first major PR nightmare in the history of the internet. Frus­trat­ed by Dell’s products and customer service, Jarvis published a stream of posts on his blog, in which he publicly aired his griev­ances with the computer man­u­fac­tur­ing company. While the company ignored his criticism, which was published under the title, ‘Dell lies. Dell sucks’, his blog gained a great deal of attention from the wider public.

The blog, which already had a con­sid­er­able online outreach, rapidly gained support from internet users, who began to share their own ex­pe­ri­ences with the computer man­u­fac­tur­ers. Within a re­mark­ably short space of time, Dell found itself in the midst of a PR nightmare on an un­prece­dent­ed level. Sales volumes dropped as in­nu­mer­able news sources reported on the incident, coining the headline ‘Dell Hell’.

Even­tu­al­ly, Dell invested $150 million in spe­cial­ists, who combed through the company’s social media channels to face the critics and determine the source of the uproar. After suc­cess­ful­ly appeasing the critics and quelling the furore, ‘Dell Hell’ is now regarded as a prime example of how a PR nightmare can quickly get out of hand and the ef­fec­tive­ness of pro­fes­sion­al crisis man­age­ment.

Nestlé, the world’s biggest food company, provoked the most famous PR night­mares in history – provoked by the un­com­fort­able truth behind their KitKat bars. It all started in 2010 when the en­vi­ron­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tion, Green­peace, posted a video to YouTube that was so shocking that it put Nestlé customers off their food. This video showed a man un­wrap­ping a KitKat, but instead of finding a chocolate bar inside, the wrapping falls away to reveal a bloody orangutan finger.

With this viral video, Green­peace creates a direct link between Nestlé’s use of palm oil in its products and the rapid en­dan­ger­ment of orang­utans in the In­done­sian jungle. Their message is clear: because of the con­tro­ver­sial use of palm oil suppliers …, consumers of Nestlé products are re­spon­si­ble for the de­struc­tion of the orangutan’s natural habitat. With the video lingering on images of blood sticking to the consumer’s hands, the campaign painted a less than flat­ter­ing portrait of Nestlé.

The food company quickly succeeded in having the viral video removed from YouTube and banned all the negative comments from its Facebook profile – the worst possible strategy in crisis man­age­ment. These attempts to smother the backlash only fueled public in­dig­na­tion, which resulted in Green­peace’s video quickly re-emerging all over the internet. The cor­po­ra­tion even­tu­al­ly caved to the growing pressure and changed its palm oil supplier.

‘For You. Vor Ort’ (For you. On site.) was the slogan of the now insolvent German drugstore chain, Schlecker. The intention of such a tagline was to demon­strate the company’s concern for the customer. De­ter­mined to shake off its tired rep­u­ta­tion and rebrand itself as a serious, modern business, the company adjusted its image using a snappy slogan in a mixture of English and German to demon­strate its in­ter­na­tion­al flair. So far so good.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly for Schlecker, the Verein für Sprach­pflege (as­so­ci­a­tion for language con­ser­va­tion) found this slogan less than inspiring. The group, whose raison d’être is to condemn ‘offences against the German language’ and counter the use of English words and phrases in the German language, publicly crit­i­cized Schlecker. However, the company’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions branch then dug them­selves an even deeper hole.

A media spokesper­son for Schlecker defended the motto in the worst possible way. The publicist claimed the simple mishmash of languages appealed directly to their de­mo­graph­ic: people with a ‘low to medium level of education’, before claiming Schlecker was not aimed at ‘cultured linguists’. While this statement amused the press, it caused outrage among its target group. The online community riled against the business, and the spokesper­son’s comments landed the company in a self-imposed PR nightmare that even­tu­al­ly brought about the downfall of the company.

The PR nightmare faced by UEFA in the run-up to the 2012 European Football Cham­pi­onship, is much more serious. As any host country would, Ukraine wanted to show itself in the best light at the in­ter­na­tion­al event. But the country was overrun by street dogs, making the cities dirty and dangerous for visitors. Their solution: to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly poison and burn the homeless animals.

Animal rights activists around the world were up in arms and took to the internet to raise awareness of the torture of the Ukrainian street dogs. Around the world, activists called for a boycott of EUFA. The animal rights or­ga­ni­za­tion, PETA, and the Facebook page ‘Stop Killing Dogs’ made headlines. As the PR nightmare reached its climax, sponsors began to distance them­selves from the event in order to avoid getting tangled up in the scandal. Finally, the Ukrainian gov­ern­ment decided to take action against the mass ex­ter­mi­na­tion of street dogs. Today, the country is resolving the issue of homeless animals using cas­tra­tion.

Impaired data con­nec­tions and sudden dis­con­nec­tions are not uncommon in congested areas. When these problems occur mobile operators need to calm angry customers and resolve the problem as quickly as possible. In 2011 the network provider O2 failed massively in both areas.

It all started with a viral blog post. Using the headline, ‘Wir sind Einzelfall’ (‘these are isolated incidents’), IT developer Matthias Bauer aired his frus­tra­tions about the phone network’s customer service. After continual network crashes, the company’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives insisted that Bauer’s problem was an isolated incident, referring to these crashes as ‘temporary dis­tur­bances’ and ‘locally limited’. The blogger, however, disproved these claims time and time again.

On the (now deleted) website, ‘wir-sind-einzelfall.de’, Bauer published a survey, allowing other O2 customers to publish their own ex­pe­ri­ences with the mobile operator. Within six days, the blog received over 700 responses, and it became apparent that in fact, thousands of people were affected by these so-called ‘isolated incident’, and this posed a very serious threat to O2’s rep­u­ta­tion. In the face of ever-growing pressure from the public, the network operator finally admitted that these could no longer be con­sid­ered isolated incidents, prompting them to announce a network expansion.

A viral complaint about the German bank, ING-DiBa, demon­strates how a PR nightmare can change course as it develops. A 2012 ad campaign showed bas­ket­ball player Dirk Nowitzki eating a slice of sausage. The vegan community was outraged at the blatant display of meat con­sump­tion and the company was over­whelmed with criticism on its social media channels.

ING-DiBa stood their ground and let the mob rage on. As one spokesper­son insisted, ‘We don’t want to censor anything, and we are open to a free dis­cus­sion’. The bank un­de­ni­ably hit its target. The German media pounced on this bizarre viral post story, and with it, so did many meat eaters. The critics were condemned for using an ag­gres­sive tone against a company that, in many people’s eyes, had done nothing wrong. Soon, the voices of the offended customers were sup­pressed by a larger group of loyal customers and meat eaters.

ING-DiBa used this incident to its advantage; as one spokesper­son stated, ‘Our customers have shown sol­i­dar­i­ty with us, com­plete­ly of their own accord. Customer sat­is­fac­tion is at the core our strong brand.’

In an attempt to boost sales, European detergent brand, Henkel, decided to allow their customers to create limited edition designs, letting their imag­i­na­tions run wild. At least, that was the idea behind their 2011 social media campaign, ‘Mein Pril - Mein Stil’ (‘my Pril, my way’). Henkel announced that it would add two customer-designed versions of Pril to its col­lec­tion, and the customers them­selves would vote on which design would be produced.

Despite the campaign’s potential for crowd­sourc­ing, the company did not foresee the backlash from internet ‘trolls’. Rather than selecting the best design, the voters chose the weirdest: a bottle with the slogan, ‘Tastes yummy like chicken’ scrawled across a brown label.

Because of this, Henkel didn’t present the results of the ad­ver­tis­ing campaign. Instead of honoring its promise to produce the winners of the vote, the company allowed a jury to select two ap­pro­pri­ate designs from the ten most popular proposals. Un­sur­pris­ing­ly, they didn’t go for the barbecue chicken. Many survey par­tic­i­pants felt deceived and protested the alleged ma­nip­u­la­tion via viral Facebook and Twitter posts. Henkel learned the hard way: no one likes a spoil­sport.

As these anecdotes demon­strate, PR night­mares can occur in a number of ways. PR night­mares are not limited to faceless companies. In­di­vid­u­als also often find them­selves caught in the crossfire. In par­tic­u­lar, celebri­ties and public figures fall victim to viral social media posts time and time again. Our cultural fas­ci­na­tion with celebri­ties means that well-known singers, actors, sports stars and TV per­son­al­i­ties are con­stant­ly in danger of en­coun­ter­ing a PR nightmare, without them nec­es­sar­i­ly having to do anything commonly thought of as wrong. For the victims of a viral post, using social media correctly can be one of the biggest chal­lenges.

As we have seen from the above examples, the addressee is not always at fault. While there’s no foolproof method of avoiding these disasters, there are certain com­mu­ni­ca­tion guide­lines rec­om­mend­ed by PR strate­gists; with these guide­lines, victims of a PR nightmare can appease the critics and avoid an es­ca­la­tion of the situation.

• Stay calm and analyze the situation: when a PR nightmare is brewing companies tend to overreact. But before coun­ter­mea­sures are taken, it’s important to evaluate the situation and ask the following questions: are you just receiving more negative comments than normal, or is this really a serious case of viral posting? Is the criticism justified? And what options are there for appeasing the critics?
  
  
• Avoid censoring the criticism: knee-jerk reactions such as deleting unwelcome comments or turning off comment functions on social media platform should be avoided. As the Nestlé crisis has proven, viral posts are boundless and they can simply shift from one platform to another. Legal measures should also be con­sid­ered. Typically, cor­po­ra­tions cause even more damage to their image when they attempt to suppress their critics’ opinions. If attacks are un­jus­ti­fied, or un­nec­es­sar­i­ly ag­gres­sive or insulting, they are generally not taken very seriously anyway. The ING-DiBa story also proves that in some cases, a community of customers will defend the business against the barrage of viral posts, and in doing so, protect the rep­u­ta­tion of the company.

• Take critics seriously and ac­knowl­edge errors: when a company is at fault, dubious tactics are often used in an attempt to escape blame. But when the first negative comments appear, denying or disputing the claims will not stop the backlash from viral social media posts. Critical voices should instead be taken seriously, as should the future of the company’s image. Denying or keeping silent in the face of obvious griev­ances will only drag out the effects of the PR nightmare un­nec­es­sar­i­ly, and twisting facts and rejecting re­spon­si­bil­i­ty will also just escalate the situation. To get out of the line of fire as smoothly as possible, it’s advisable for to companies own up to their failures and discuss the possible reper­cus­sions without at­tempt­ing to excuse them. Companies should also come up with a plan to com­pen­sate for any damage caused and a strategy for avoiding the future rep­e­ti­tion of their mistakes.

• Open and com­pre­hen­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tion: crisis com­mu­ni­ca­tion is the biggest challenge in main­tain­ing a good image. If damage has been done to the company’s rep­u­ta­tion, absolute trans­paren­cy is the most effective way to regain the customer’s trust. But when disaster strikes, it’s not only the customers who demand an ex­pla­na­tion. Many other people can be affected, including stake­hold­ers such as employees, suppliers, donors, or share­hold­ers, and these people also need to be updated on the state of play. A certain level of tact is required here, therefore, if the company has no PR staff, it’s advised to recruit external help. With the help of ex­pe­ri­enced con­sul­tants, it’s possible to find the right contacts, attract mul­ti­pli­ers and in­flu­encers, and present in­for­ma­tion in a way that is ap­pro­pri­ate to the target group. Arrogance, ignorance, and in­dif­fer­ence are strictly out of the question when it comes to crisis com­mu­ni­ca­tion. 

• Remember to act on all com­mu­ni­ca­tion platforms: during times of crisis, companies should indicate a will­ing­ness to com­mu­ni­cate. The only way to suc­cess­ful­ly deal with a PR nightmare is to take criticism seriously. This means that it’s rec­om­mend­able to include all available com­mu­ni­ca­tion platforms when dealing with the problem. Press con­fer­ences and written com­mu­ni­ca­tions are useful tools for ad­dress­ing the public, while customer service hotlines and social media channels can be used to address people at a more human level. The Dell example proves that the structure of com­mu­ni­ca­tions methods can be as­so­ci­at­ed with high costs.

If companies are able to respond in a timely way, admit to their errors openly and honestly, they can even emerge stronger after a crisis. Recall campaigns are a good example of this, as they demon­strate that the man­u­fac­tur­er or retailer accepts fault and has responded com­pe­tent­ly and proac­tive­ly. If a PR nightmare causes a re­think­ing of practises, a com­pre­hen­sive re­struc­ture, or even a re­ori­en­ta­tion of the business’ corporate policy, this may well create sympathy from the general public and increase brand awareness.