In the eye of the (fire)storm: better safe or sorry? Crisis communication strategies for managing virality of online negative brand-related content

ABSTRACT

Companies face a considerable number of online complaints on social media, with some escalating into major virality (online firestorms). Given the risks associated with reputation and sales, companies implement crisis response communication strategies to refrain audiences from forwarding content to others. Despite the positive effects of such strategies, the mechanism that underpins the effects are not yet analyzed in the literature. The current study proposes that in situations of potential online firestorms, brand attitude influences conative responses, including intentions to forward negative content to others. An apology is the response strategy most often implemented, despite others being mentioned in the literature. The current study evaluates how corrective actions compare with an apology in dealing with complaints, with the type of responses being proposed as a moderator of the effects of brand attitude. Results show that brand attitudes following exposure to a crisis response strategy have significant effects on refraining intentions to forward negative e-WOM. An apology is the preferred option as a response strategy in general. However, when specific triggers of complaint are analyzed, corrective actions and apology perform similarly. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Crisis management
• online firestorm
• scct
• situational crisis communication theory
• social media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniela Langaro

Daniela Langaro (Ph.D) is assistant professor at ISCTE-IUL (Portugal), and visiting professor at Católica Lisbon Business School (Portugal). Following her 15 years of experience in Consumer Packaged Goods and OTC industry, Langaro moved to academia in 2012. Her general research interests involve issues in internet marketing, social media, brand communications and brand management. She has published her research in scientific journals such as Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Communications, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Event Management, International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, Journal of Promotion Management and Journal of Creative Communications.

Sandra Loureiro

Sandra Maria Correia Loureiro is in the ranking of 2% of the best scientists in the world in both Marketing and Sport, Leisure & Tourism by Stanford University, together with the publishing house Elsevier and SciTech Strategies. Her research interests include relationship marketing, marketing communication issues and the implications with VR, AR and AI. Her papers have been published in a variety of peer reviewed journals that include Journal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Service Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Cleaner Production, the Service Industries Journal or Online Information Review. She recently won several awards, such as: the 2012 Best Paper Premier Award presented by the Global Marketing Conference (comprised of EMAC, ANZMAC, KSMS, and the Japanese Association of Marketing), Highly Commended paper Award 2014 - 7th EuroMed Conference and EuroMed Research Business Institute (EMRBI), Highly Commended paper Award 2016 - 9th EuroMed Conference and EuroMed Research Business Institute (EMRBI), Best Paper Award 2016- ICCMI 2016. In 2017 and 2018 she also won high commended papers award from editor Emerald. Best paper award at the Fashion Management Conference 2019 and Best reviewer award for Psychology and Marketing.

Bruno Schivinski

Bruno Schivinski (Ph.D) is a sociologist, behavioral researcher, and Senior Lecturer in Advertising at RMIT University, Australia. He consults for online service providers, websites, and scientific institutions such as the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) and the National Science Centre (NCN). Schivinski specializes in problematic consumer behavior, social-media engagement, online branding, and user-generated content. His research has received international coverage on Forbes Magazine and Google News. His latest work can be found in such academic journals as the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Journal of Marketing Communications, and Journal of Clinical Medicine.

Helder Neves

Helder Neves holds a master’s degree in Marketing from the ISCTE Business School. His research interests include Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Digital Marketing, Social Media and Strategic Marketing related fields.