How Pepsi handled its PR crisis

Last year, Pepsi encountered one of its biggest public relations crises in years. In April 2017, Pepsi launched its newest ad as part of the ‘Live for Now’ campaign on YouTube. However, this two-and-a-half minute spot was not online for long, since the reactions on social media on this ad were not positive, to say the least… The ad shows supermodel Kendall Jenner leaving her photo shoot in order to join a protest outside on the streets. Thereafter, she ensured peace between the protesters and the cops, by handing a can of Pepsi to a cop… Without further ado, see the ad for yourself.

                                     

What sparked the crisis?

As said before, the reactions on social media weren’t sweet. Twitter exploded. The widespread criticism entailed that the ad was inappropriate, tone deaf and disrespectful. People accused Pepsi of trivializing recent protest movements, such as the Women’s March and the Black Lives Matter movement. Even the daughter of Martin Luther King, Bernice King, responded to the ad. She tweeted: “If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi.”  

                               

Source: twitter.com/berniceking

Frames that are built on social media by the public can have an important role in defining a certain crisis, and can, subsequently, affect the evolution and impact of that crisis. Those online frames can have far-reaching consequences (Van der Meer, 2016). This seemed to be the case for the Pepsi crisis. The widespread criticism apparently became too much, since Pepsi pulled the ad within 24 hours of releasing it.

Pepsi’s crisis management

Pulling the ad was probably the last thing that Pepsi wanted to do. The production of this ad might have cost a lot, considering, among other things, Kendall Jenner being the highest paid model in 2017. However, it didn’t seem like Pepsi had any other choice… In the press release Pepsi stated the following:

“Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are removing the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position.”

A quick reaction is essential

Probably the best thing that Pepsi did, was handling the crisis as fast as possible. A quick reaction is essential in times of crisis. Pepsi posted a press release and pulled the ad within 24 hours of releasing it. Since the rise of social media has changed the flow of information, it is crucial for organizations to constantly monitor what is happening online, in order to recognize possible crisis signals as early as possible (Sung, 2014). This is one of the things that Pepsi obviously did do right.

Why Pepsi did the right thing

Furthermore, Pepsi handled this crisis in the right way for multiple reasons. Pepsi accepted the responsibility, admitted the mistake, apologized, and pulled the ad. According to Coombs’ (2007) Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), the crisis response should be in line with the attribution of responsibility for the crisis. The SCCT describes three crisis clusters based on the attribution of responsibility. Pepsi fits within the so-called intentional or preventable cluster, which has very strong attributions of responsibility for the crisis. In case of a preventable crisis, a ‘rebuild’ crisis response strategy should be used, according to the SCCT crisis response strategy guidelines. One of the rebuild crisis response strategies is ‘apology’. With this strategy, the organization takes full responsibility for the crisis and, obviously, apologizes. This is exactly what Pepsi did, with hopes to prevent (any further) reputational damage. The fact that Pepsi also apologized to Kendall Jenner did spark some critique on social media. But in all honesty, what doesn’t nowadays?

About the author:

Kim van Loon is a Corporate Communication master’s student at the University of Amsterdam. She works at her own company ‘Van Loon Communicatie’ as a Dutch linguistic, corrector and translator. Topics of interest are: Dutch language, PR, crisis communication. 

Academic sources for this article:

Coombs, W. T. (2007). Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate reputation review, 10(3), 163-176.

Sung, M., & Hwang, J. S. (2014). Who drives a crisis? The diffusion of an issue through social networks. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 246-257.

Van der Meer, T. G. (2016). Public frame building: the role of source usage in times of crisis. Communication Research, 45(6), 956-981.