The Blame-Game: Decoding the brand & ambassador’s role during a Social Media Crisis
With Fortune Oil and its brand ambassador Sourav Ganguly being the latest ones to fall prey to a social media crisis, we speak to experts on what should be a brand’s apt action plan to tackle such situations.
Social Media crisis has been the norm of the ad world in the last few months. We witnessed the Tanishq controversy in the year that was and the new year saw Adani Wilmar’s flagship cooking oil brand Fortune Oil getting widely trolled after its brand ambassador Sourav Ganguly suffered a minor cardiac arrest. The trolls mainly targetted the brand, for the ambassador suffered a heart attack after touting the product health. In such unfortunate circumstances- who’s to blame or not to blame What should be the brand’s ideal crisis response plan? We find out.
Following the criticism online, Fortune Rice Bran cooking oil pulled out ads featuring Sourav Ganguly. However, the latest reports suggest that Adani Wilmar will continue to work with the former Indian cricket captain as their brand ambassador and is also likely to embark on reinforcing the oil’s health benefits in its campaign.
But in such a situation, where brands and brand ambassadors deal with many sociopolitical sensitivities, what should be the action plan in case of a backfire?
Social Media Crisis – The Right Move
Constant trolling and criticism highlighting the irony of the situation led Fortune Cooking Oil to remove the ads promoted by Ganguly on social media. But is it the right move?
“The brand should just stay quiet. There is no need for a pull out of the creative for now,” opines Harish Bijoor, Brand Guru & Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. “Its time to show solidarity and support to Saurav in his current condition. Yes, you might want to reduce brand pressure in terms of the exposures planned. This is a dilemma of health and healthy communication for the Adani Wilmar brand.”
Echoing similar views, Ambi Parameswaran, Brand Strategist/ Founder- Brand Building says that brands should not get into a Twitter fight with the trolls and it is best to stay quiet.
He adds, “You cannot even make a joke about the health of such a revered celebrity. It was unfortunate for Fortune that such a admired, physically fit cricketer has a heart attack. But these things happen. Accenture that stands for ’Trusted Partner’ had a similar fiasco when its endorser Tiger Woods had a trust meltdown with his wife.
On the other hand, Business Strategist Lloyd Mathias thinks that the brand had no choice other than pulling down the current campaign. It makes sense because now running a campaign with Sourav talking about health would be inappropriate.
However, what they do in the next fortnight or even a month is to be seen. He notes, “They could possibly do something about wishing him well or hoping that he has a speedy recovery. Depending on the agency which is Ogilvy – they could devise a response plan- also putting a halt on the campaign is understandable. With time how they devise a new story around this is what will determine how it works.”
The Crisis Response Plan
In a situation as above, according to Ambika Sharma, Founder & MD, Pulp Strategy, being associated with “health and nutrition” the brand can chalk out a longer-term strategy on contributing to the ambassador’s health recovery, working with doctors and nutritionists to enable a roadmap and educating the public on healthy nutrition habits during recovery.
There are many legs to such an approach, it however cannot be tactical but must home itself into the brand’s communication moving forward. The Agency has an important role to play, speed, agility, and quickness in terms of response. “As the situation evolves it’s the agency’s responsibility to be able to own and evolve the narrative and have the preparedness to address the sentiment shift positively,” she says.
Parameswaran opines, “Dropping the face of the cricketer is one way of minimizing the damage. But they should stay silent till the news cycle changes. Then come back with an emotional campaign. There is already a good playbook adopted by Maggi a few years ago.”
Brands have to be ultra careful in this much polarised atmosphere on various issues that can create a social media crisis, feels Mathias. The brand still need to ensure that they are reaching out to the audience in an appropriate ways. “Being ultra careful doesn’t mean that the brand has to be completely silent. If there are issues that are affecting their customers or are important, I think brand should not be afraid to speak out and reach out to its consumers,” he adds.
Sharing his views on the topic in a Twitter thread, Communications Consultant Karthik Srinivasan, observes that the Ganguly ads are on the brand’s own website and social channels. Removing them was the first step. “Build a larger narrative around the causes of heart attack in the 40s that do not directly correlate it to oil consumption alone (this goes against their own reductive advertising, but is necessary in the current context), including stress (BCCI!!), lifestyle, etc.,” he tweeted.
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Accurate Dealing Practise
There are situations where the brand comes into the spotlight for a mishap, but it is important to understand that this particular situation is a health crisis and the ambassador is not at fault. In such a situation, according to Sharma, a brand should ideally stand behind the ambassador in addition to taking control of the narrative.
However, in this specific incident, Mathias thinks, it’s unfair to blame Ganguly or anyone concerned because the brand chose to rope in a very well-known spokesperson, known for a healthy lifestyle.
In an era where the brand and the ambassador are one unit, it is even more imperative for the two to come together for a contingency plan.
Sharma briefs that for a strong brand with consistent communication and an engaged community, a few days of trolling is a bump in the road (a reference to the current context). This very same situation if handled well and gracefully could become a best practice case study.
Brands are a very important element of shaping culture just like cinema. What they say, people tend to believe. Mathias thinks they have to be very careful about the issues that they stand for and stick by them.
In August 2019, when a customer canceled his order on Zomato basis the religion of the delivery vendor, the former responded by taking a stand for their rider. While the company did face backlash, the decision to stick to their guns was exhibited by the brand and their CEO.
According to Mathias, Brands do not have to be totally silent or neutral. “There will be controversies in this new world where everyone has a social media account and is able to broadcast their views freely – that is bound to happen. But that should not prevent brands from taking an appropriate brand. They should go ahead and do what’s right for their target consumer. Controversies are part and parcel and they have to learn to kind of take it on the chin,” he signs off.
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