I will let you know how Crock-Pot answered to their one and only Twitter crisis and got 2,582 followers in less than a week, but before that, let's get some context.
In digital media (and in any kind of marketing), everything revolves around connections between brands and audiences. To create that relationship, brands need to have a good story to tell. By creating an emotional connection, people will want to follow and support the brand for reasons beyond convenience and price.
A perfect example of these connections is created by TV shows. A good storyline can create connections and emotional reactions that exist only in the imagination of the audience. To understand this, look no further than the deep, strong connection that audiences of “This Is Us” had with the main character, Jack Pearson, and the irrational response to the cause of his death in the show – a faulty crockpot that initiated a house fire. After the episode aired, fans of the show took to Twitter to initiate a boycott of Crock-Pot products.
Until this point, Crock-Pot had been out of social media, with no Twitter account; however, they listened, they gathered information and they observed that the trending of hashtags like #CROCKPOT, #ThisIsUs, #ThisIsUsfans were trending with a negative sentiment towards the brand.
Crock-Pot took action, created a Twitter account and defended their products in a warm and compassionate way. They understood the fans were mourning, so the brand needed to defend themselves with as much empathy as if Jack was a real person. In a brilliant crisis response strategy, they involved the actor who portrayed the now-defunct character (Milo Ventimiglia), the creator of the show (Dan Fogelman) and even Ellen DeGeneres to defend Crock-Pot, and a new hashtag was created: #crockpotisinnocent.
The episode was a fictional account of the imaginary death of a character born and killed by the imagination of a writer. Yet the response by the audience was real, and the effects for the brand were noticeable, but a swift response by the brand after analyzing the data saved the day.
Crock-Pot regained the loyalty and empathy of their customers in a meaningful way (and has not used their twitter account since then)
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