How much will a PR crisis cost you?
Only time will tell if this PR crisis will be passed down from parents to offspring...
First, let me vent: When did PR become a slur? The way people talk about PR teams is equivalent to the menacing facade of ‘greenwashing’ or of a Waluigi-looking evil puppeteer pulling all the strings, all while abusing the term “PR nightmare” without any understanding of the weight of their actions. The irony of this profession needing a PR campaign is not at all lost on me, having worked in PR and Marketing for nearly a decade, and the growing lack of distinction feels very much like a snake eating its own tail. Depending on your industry, you might write a press release so elegantly that you convince yourself that you could have been Obama’s speech writer, but it can also feel like shovelling coal into the ol’ propaganda machine.
What’s a PR crisis anyway?
Put simply, it’s an event so bad it negatively impacts you on dimensions that make it hard to recover: brand and finances—with a third and most important axis of time. The degree of impact all depends on what you did and the cultural significance of the moment.
Enter: the least creative play on words, ever
Let’s use the vocally-fried-eugenics-undertoned-American-Eagle-Sydney-Sweeney “Good Genes Jeans” campaign to discuss. Malicious intent and racial coding aside, let’s consider how you might navigate this and measure the impact.
Context: Failing brand pays it-girl of the moment millions to promote jeans while applying the least effort to develop a pun on the product category. Campaign causes absolute uproar—largely due to current political tensions, the death of DEI, and her heavy hand in the bimbo-ification of her own brand.
Everything is about perception
Monitor! A mix of qual and quant data on how people are talking about the campaign. You know you’re in trouble when people refer to it as an “incident” or “controversy”, rather than a campaign.
Sentiment: Typically categorized as negative, neutral, or positive. In this case, about 99% negative.
Identify circles of influence: Are there people with influence weighing in and amplifying further, are they on your side or not… but do you even want them on your side? J.D. Couchloving Vance defending the campaign in the same breath as talking about Nazis… and Dojacat mocking the ads. Again, not so good!!!
Examine frequency and spikes in mentions: My fyp was going off, whereas I have not been fed American Eagle content since graduating high school.
Manage! People are freaking out inside the company's walls, so overcommunicate and manage internal stakeholders by issuing regular reporting on the above, with recommendations on how to reduce the blowback and advising them on any actionable items on their part.
How this played out in real life: Executives turned off comments on their social media profiles to limit engagement.
Respond! Establish your positioning by developing a response and managing inbound media requests and social media engagement.
How this played out in real life:
American Eagle issued a boring statement (where they notably do not apologize), Sweeney stays silent.
American Eagle and Sweeney remove the scripted videos with eugenics-coded language, but keeps the still shots and wordless videos.
The age-old adage of ‘all press is good press’ is somehow more contorted now that brands are fighting for digital shares in the attention economy. But, let’s move on from one intangible economy to the next…
Dollars on the line
Here’s the financials at play during this crisis:
🤡 Sunker than sunk costs: Sweeney undoubtedly collected seven figures for the ad, and American Eagle also would have put hundreds of thousands on media spend to promote it.
📉 Stock: Momentarily rose 18% in the days following the release, but this was short-lived and is currently down 37% YoY.
🗃️ Investors: JPMorgan downgraded shares in American Eagle following the incident.
💸 Sales: No visibility on revenue until they release their 10-K, but taking stock and backlash into account, safe to say it will not be a strong sales quarter for them.
📡 PR Firm: Brands AE’s size typically have an agency on retainer that would run them ~$50,000 USD per month. Likely more given crisis-mode triggered around the clock management and all-hands on deck.
🧊 Sweeney’s Partnerships: This reduces which mass brands will work with her in the immediate future, but you know there is some executive out there drooling over the ‘virality’, her ability to ‘cut through the noise’, and so on.
Predictions for AE and Sydney
For American Eagle: Stock will probably hover back to where it was pre-campaign or plummet lower, the product will inevitably circle down the promotion > discount rack > discount tj maxx chain and outlet drain. They’ll over-correct towards including extremely diverse models as a ‘everybody has good genes’ play, and whatever their next campaign is, it will garner a bump in attention only in reference back to this “Good Genes” campaign.
For Sweeney: For the last year, she and her team have followed the money [*insert clip of her at Bezos wedding*], and they’ll likely continue on their merry way. I see more partnerships with objectifying overtones, ChatGPT-written films produced by MGM Studios, and exchanges that feel as transparent as an OF account without the social shame of taking to the platform itself. She is an it-girl for hire and despite what your fyp says, there is a market for it. She’s been silent through all of this, but I see her poking fun at this debacle in the near future on SNL or a similar Late Night stage.
To close out
Consumers are generally pretty forgetful, but let’s see how long we hold onto this blunder. Without the cultural context of the tension in the US right now, this ad could have been another blimp. Unpopular opinion, but honestly, how sad that a flailing company shelled out millions only to end up with a PR crisis and a stain on their brand. womp womp!
We neeeeeed Kelly on the case!
bless you for this breakdown!