As The Guardian stops taking fossil fuel ads, marketers should take a similar stand and end big oil brands’ strategy of distracting the world from the harm they are doing.
Not all publicity is good publicity, but as long as you don’t undermine your proposition or entirely alienate your market, the salience gained from a bad news story often outweighs any damage to brand image.
Apple has messed up by adopting a biased algorithm that disadvantages women applying for its credit card, but the chances of it harming the core technology business are slim.
Cadbury’s efforts to promote diversity have been ridiculed on social media, but the bigger issue is the hypocrisy of doing so while paying no UK tax.
Whether or not Thomas Cook responds to financial rumours, once trust in its stability is undermined its brand equity will erode, obliterating future sales.
Noel Edmonds’ clever campaign for compensation from Lloyds Banking Group is harming perceptions of the Lloyds brand, which will ultimately cost it customers – and he’s unlikely to give up.
The KFC chicken crisis caused by DHL’s delivery failures could have been disastrous, but a rapid strategic response has ensured the brand will benefit long-term from increased awareness and a boost in consumer demand.
Marketers were reportedly upset that their ads appeared next to expletives on Mumsnet, but that’s how real people talk and it pales in comparison to terrorist content as a risk to brands online.
A National Lottery Twitter campaign has been hijacked by trolls, but marketers would have seen it coming if they weren’t so absorbed in their fantasies of ‘brand love’.
Ivanka Trump’s jewellery brand has been boosted rather than damaged by her father’s divisiveness as US president because of one simple reason: high awareness among the target market.
PwC is a B2B firm and its business is based on decades-long relationships, so talk of ‘brand damage’ from naming the wrong best picture is facile nonsense.
It is not bad creative that consumers hate, it’s ads full stop, which means however hard the industry tries to improve their quality, the use of online ad blocking software will continue to rise.
If VW can peddle a message of trust, anything can happen.
According to Peter Barron, vice-president for communications and public affairs, it is very “difficult” for Google to work out how much tax it should be paying in the UK.
Cynical marketers are better marketers as they aren’t swayed by misguided enthusiasm, but the critical responses to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are unfair – they should use their money for whatever causes they want.