How Does Digital PR Help Manage a Brand Crisis?

From the Eiger blunder to the Esteh Indonesia case, how digital PR helps brands navigate crises in the online realm.

The management at PT Esteh Indonesia probably didn’t expect that the cease-and-desist letter they sent to the owner of the Twitter account @Gandhoyy would cause such a stir on social media. Instead of defending their brand equity and serving as a deterrent to the Twitter account owner, Esteh ended up facing a backlash and a barrage of anger from netizens.

It all started when @gandhoyy tweeted a criticism of the flavor of Chizu Red Velvet, one of Esteh Indonesia’s beverage products, which he deemed too sweet. He even claimed that the drink contained more than 3 kilograms of sugar.

Esteh Indonesia then viewed the tweet as a baseless accusation that could lead to negative public opinion about its product. A cease-and-desist letter was sent to @gandhoyy, which quickly spread and went viral. However, netizens’ support was largely directed toward @gandhoyy, and they instead turned their criticism toward Esteh.

Brand Terrorists vs. Brand Evangelists

Marketing expert and Managing Partner at Inventure, Yuswohady, explains that brands will always encounter two types of customers: Brand Evangelists and Brand Terrorists. Brand Evangelists are customers who praise a brand to the skies based on their fondness for it. Conversely, Brand Terrorists are those who give negative reviews of a brand. Both rely on the power of Word of Mouth (WOM).

Unfortunately, negative WOM spreads more easily than positive WOM. According to Yuswohady, this is influenced by a fundamental human tendency to prefer sharing negative news over positive news (the “negativity bias”). Branding expert Pete Blackshaw once said, “Satisfied customers tell three friends; angry customers tell 3,000.”

Social Media as a Brand Killing Field

If you pay attention, cases or conflicts involving consumers and brands are now more common on social media. According to Yuswohady, this happens because social media has created “The Connected Netizen.” With just a smartphone, netizens can band together to collectively bully, criticize, and berate brands they deem bad. With just a small trigger, social media can become a “brand killing field”—a battleground where a brand’s reputation is slaughtered.

In Indonesia over the past five years, there have been many victims, including major companies such as Garuda Indonesia, Eiger, Lion Air, and even Bukalapak. In several cases, netizens have prevailed and forced brands to issue public apologies.

Digital PR as a Communication Strategy for Online Crises

Bima Marzuki, CEO of Media Buffet PR Agency, noted that conflicts involving netizens and brands on social media are often triggered by brands’ misguided approaches to communicating with consumers online. According to him, most of these troubled brands still rely on traditional PR strategies when dealing with crises in the digital realm. “Yet the field of digital public relations has evolved,” he said.

Digital PR is a strategy that integrates traditional PR and digital marketing. This is influenced by the field of digital PR, which was initially developed by digital marketing practitioners. Internationally, the field of digital PR has been evolving since around 2012, in tandem with the rapid development of the internet and the digital world, as brands in developed countries like the United States and Europe began to recognize the importance of a digital presence—that is, their existence in the digital realm.

The internet and the digital world influence consumer behavior, including how they communicate with brands. The simplest example, according to Bima, is that in the past, to voice criticism or complaints about a brand, consumers might have had to resort to methods such as sending letters to the editor in the media while hoping the brand would read them. Now, all it takes is a post on social media.

So what should brands do? Adapt.

In the case of Esteh Indonesia, Bima observed a lack of digital literacy on the part of the brand when responding to consumer complaints. “Before issuing a cease-and-desist letter, they should have carefully considered the potential consequences by conducting extensive research,” he said. “And in digital PR, there are plenty of tools available to conduct that research.”

Bima cited social listening as an example—the practice of monitoring trends or conversations on social media. “With these tools, a digital PR practitioner can predict the direction in which an issue or topic will develop on social media, supported by the data presented,” he explained. Thus, with digital PR, decisions are based more on data than on emotion.

If only Esteh Indonesia’s management had been a little more patient in conducting research through a digital PR strategy, according to Bima, the criticism wouldn’t have snowballed out of control. Because of the cease-and-desist letter, the Esteh issue expanded beyond mere consumer criticism to include health concerns regarding sugar consumption and regulations on sugar content in beverage products. “In the end, it wasn’t just Esteh that suffered, but other players in the same industry as well,” said Bima.

Wiko Rahardjo