ReachJanuary 1 to December 1

Crisis Management 101 How did DiGiorno bounce back from a cheesy tweet?DiGiorno:Do social gaffes impact the brand long-term? By Katie Meyer

On September 9, 2014, DiGiorno — the reheat-at-home pizza brand — was on a roll. In the days beforehand, DiGiorno had live-tweeted a Colts vs Broncos football game with saucy comments using trending hashtags. Retweets poured in. Life was good.

Context – DiGiorno on Twitter

DiGiorno went too far by co-opting #whyIstayed — belittling women and trivializing a sensitive conversation.

Domestic violence survivors used the trending topic to speak out against the weak victim stereotype, explain warning signs of abuse, and discuss their personal experiences with how abusers trap their targets.

Context – DiGiorno on Twitter

Twitter users quickly decided that mocking domestic violence victims was way over the line. Judgement of the brand was swift, widespread, and brutal. DiGiorno later claimed its social media manager was not aware of #whyIstayed’s meaning. To use their own hashtag, #digiorNOYOUDIDINT.

Context – DiGiorno on Twitter

Containment strategy flattens growth

Crowdbabble’s content analysis tool shows individualized apologies tweeted to each user who complained about DiGiorno’s appropriation of the hashtag. After two days of writing apologies and general grovelling, DiGiorno stopped tweeting completely for three weeks. After an initial spike of activity as users favourited and retweeted the crusty tweet, engagement flatlined.

After the Tweet?

DiGiorno’s decision to stop all Twitter activity contained the controversy, as users did not have any new DiGiorno’s tweets to hijack with angry comments. It came at a price: follower growth stalled, while competitors like Freschetta, RedBaron, PizzaPizza, and Pizza Hut continued to climb.

It’s not delivery, it’s a slow decline in engagement over time

In its first tweets after three weeks of silence, responses were back to normal and the #whyIstayed debacle wasn’t mentioned. Using Crowdbabble’s engagement report, we looked at activity on Twitter in the two months before and after the #whyIstayed tweet.

The silence, apparently, gave DiGiorno a clean start.

Turning heat back on allows brand to rise againA few months later, more than 1,800 retweets and 2,500 favourites helped @DiGiorno gain momentum over the winter and experience another viral hit. When the brand joked about Iggy Azaelia during the Grammys, it garnered more than 18,000 retweets and almost 30,000 favourites. Azaelia attacked Papa John’s delivery during her speech and DiGiorno pounced

Return to classic recipe boosts performance

A year later, DiGiorno is better than ever. In the month after the scandal, the brand received almost no mentions on Twitter.

Return to classic recipe boosts performance

This year, almost 4% of engagement with DiGiorno on Twitter is comprised of mentions and each tweet receives an average of 77.8 retweets or favourites. Though overall favourites and retweets were high last year — as users scrambled to capture the offensive tweet — now DiGiorno’s ability to capture its followers’ attention is stable and consistently high. Almost a third of the messages the brand sends receive between 10 and 49 retweets, with 4% going viral at more than 100, as shown below.

Do not impulsively post content on social campaign hashtags without understanding the context, do not attempt to hijack major social issues in the Twitter discourse

If your brand posted something very offensive, taking the time to tweet to each follower and user who cited your mistake may help your PR

Twitter engagement and growth may be affected for a bit but if your rebound strategy is appropriate, engagement and growth rebound to previous benchmarks

You can still win back fans with clever tweets and marketing, in fact many people might have already forgotten and forgiven what happened

Lessons