Consumers are quick to forgive and forget PR ‘crises’.

“Panic stations! Call an urgent meeting! Drop everything!”

PR continues to treat adverse media coverage as a ‘crisis’, although it usually isn’t. Many brands attract the occasional bad news story. In fact, our analysis of companies in the travel, automotive, financial services and other sectors reveals that only the most damaging coverage has a long-term effect on consumer behaviour.

Consumers have better judgement than we tend to give them credit for. If they believe that the brand was seriously at fault, their opinions will become less favourable, and this is likely to undermine business objectives. Good examples of this occur where brands are viewed to be behaving unethically. A great 2025 example was the Swatch advert in China which sparked accusations it included a racist gesture. Here, international news coverage fuelled calls for a brand boycott, along with a sharp decline in the company’s share price.

However, readers of the news also recognise when situations are beyond the control of a company afflicted by a negative news cycle. In these cases, they will quickly forgive and forget. The reputation of a water company will be damaged by coverage of customers queuing for bottled water when long-term lack of infrastructure investment and large CEO bonuses are judged as cynical and self-serving. However, if drinking water contamination is caused by a spillage of pollutants from a manufacturing facility, consumers know whom to blame, even though the water company might be associated with the coverage.

When we analyse the size of audience engaging with unfavourable news stories, along with the decay in size of audience over time, it’s clear that what induces a panic attack in the press office is usually no more than a storm in a teacup. Give it two or three days and it blows over. Which means it’s often better not to respond than to breathe fresh life into a story that will fizzle out.

To double check, we can look at the statistical relationship between the size of audience finding and reading the ‘damaging’ content and consumer impact, as expressed by brand tracking responses.

In a recent example, a client organisation in the travel industry suffered a passenger fatality. The news made national headlines and had a negative impact on brand perceptions and buzz, as evidenced by YouGov BrandIndex data. However, this was far outweighed by positive brand perceptions thanks to other news content appearing at the same time. The negativity soon evaporated. Within a few days, consumer response was back to normal.

Brand strength really helps here. It insulates organisations from the effects of adverse media coverage. If a brand generally has very strong levels of positive buzz, consideration and purchase intent reinforced by media coverage, it’s unlikely that a few damaging articles will have a long-term significance.

The maxim goes that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. In PR terms, it’s often unnecessary to ask for forgiveness by responding to an unhelpful news story with a statement, for example. Take a deep breath before gathering the exec team in the boardroom to craft a press release. Then check whether the needle has moved on consumer reaction. Chances are, you will be pleasantly surprised and you can leave the office at normal closing time, having reassured the top table that there’s really no need to get worked up.

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