Turning a viral consumer backlash into a measured recovery

The situation

A single customer video about a product incident went viral overnight and was picked up by a national morning show. The brand’s first statement, written by its legal team, made things worse. (Sample content: names, places and details are changed or invented.)

What we did

Within the first hour we set up round the clock monitoring, replaced the statement with a plain account of what happened and what would change, and prepared the founder for two interviews rather than none. In the following weeks we produced the content that showed the changes being made, worked with the retailers who had questions, and kept the conversation on the platforms where the customers were.

The outcome

Negative sentiment fell below the pre incident level in five weeks. Retail listings stayed in place. The brand kept the founder as its public face, and the crisis protocol written during the case is now part of its operations.