Post by Strategic

Nestlé got lucky with the #KitKat heist. Most companies won't. Twelve tons of KitKat bars went missing between Italy and Poland. Within hours, Del Taco was joking about its alibi and Outback Steakhouse had invented a "Bloomin' KitKat." Nestlé leaned in, the internet laughed, everyone moved on. Now run the same scenario one degree darker. Same theft, same jokes, except the truck turns up connected to something actually serious. Suddenly every brand that clowned around looks opportunistic instead of clever. Same jokes, same timing, completely different verdict. That's the part most crisis playbooks miss: the response isn't what determines how it lands. The audience's pre-existing trust in you is. If people already believe you're transparent, the same statement reads as human. If they don't, that exact statement reads as defensive. You don't get to build that trust in the moment. It's already been decided by the time the meme drops. Which means the real crisis communications work isn't the 24-hour response plan. It's everything your organization did and said in the two years before anyone needed a response plan at all. Full piece by Natalee Gibson in Strategic: https://lnkd.in/dVSf_SGk Where's the line for you between "brand has a sense of humor" and "brand is performing relatability"?