TL;DR Key Takeaways
In February 2025, LesserEvil Snacks, known for their organic and health-focused products, faced a public relations challenge. Their response inadvertently amplified the issue rather than mitigating it.
- Maintain Consistent Brand Voice: Ensure all communications align with your established brand identity to preserve credibility.
- Assess the Situation Objectively: Evaluate the legitimacy and reach of negative claims before responding publicly.
- Avoid Unintended Amplification: A premature or misaligned response can draw more attention to minor issues.
- Develop a PR Crisis Response Plan: Prepare a set of guiding questions to determine when and how to respond to potential PR crises.
- Stay True to Brand Values: Reinforce your company’s core principles in all communications to maintain customer trust.
By adhering to these principles, businesses can navigate PR challenges more effectively, ensuring that their responses align with their brand and the situation’s actual impact.
PR is a powerful tool to get your brand message in front of customers and the community.
But in an age when anyone with an internet connection can be a troll and cause a scene, your brand doesn’t have the bandwidth or time to respond to every PR crisis.
The LesserEvil Snack Company is learning this the hard way.
Founded in 2005, they are a snack company that is dedicated “to crafting organic, clean (devoid of vegetable oil), and delectable snacks that offer all the flavor of more traditional salty snacks while prioritizing health, sustainability, and affordability.”
As a family with gluten sensitivities and food allergies, our family has enjoyed a lot of the LesserEvil snacks. We’re on the mailing list and get info from them regularly. The brand voice and message is clear, fun and direct.
This week’s email from them was different.
Red Flag #1: Instead of the on brand, fun focused messaging they are known for, it was a PR statement formatted like it was on letterhead.
Red Flag #2: The message was cryptic in nature and alluded to “recent events” that “compelled” them to provide a response. Then a statement about their commitments as a company and brand.
Red Flag #3: The response was poorly written and not in the brand voice. So instead of endearing customers, it sent them looking for an explanation.
What caused the PR Crisis?
A blogger, TikToker and Reddit forum made claims about the brand and its ownership, calling for a boycott. A quick Google search shows the claims weren’t getting traction at all. Within hours it was at the bottom of page 1 of Google and took intentional digging to find it. The negative press was outnumbered by legitimate discussions about their products and services.
I get it. Internally this probably seemed like a huge issue. Someone was making noise and creating smoke that might cloud the brand image. But outside of the company walls, the issue hadn’t even set off the smoke alarms.
There was no PR crisis response needed. No fire to put out. No brand impact to account for. But they panicked and issued a response that made it an issue.
Their PR statement didn’t clear things up. It left customers to search for details and reinforce the search results for a narrative they were trying to quiet. In that moment they moved from endearing customers to the brand, to fanning the flames on a smoldering fire that was already dying out.
PR Crisis Lessons for Your Business
Customer Expectations
Your customers expect that every interaction with your brand will “sound” like it’s from you. When your brand voice changes dramatically you undo the work your team has put into telling your unique business story.
PR is about sharing that story publicly but it must stay congruent or you lose credibility.
Staying Objective
Don’t let the internal noise and emotion of the moment cloud your objectivity when responding to a PR crisis. There are moments when your immediate response is needed, and moments where no response is required.
Knowing the difference is what sets high performing brands apart.
A PR Crisis Response Plan for Your Business
So what do you do in the heat of the moment. When panic and fear settle in and you aren’t sure how big a PR crisis will get.
Here is a set of questions I’ve created to help brands decide what PR opportunities require a response and how to approach it when necessary.
The questions are simple, but the honest answers can be the difference between a PR misstep and a crises averted.
- Is this a legitimate issue or a troll looking for fame?
- Legitimate issues more on. Trolls don’t get fed.
- Is the impact and expanse of the issue large enough to warrant us making a public statement?
- Percentages are tough to gauge, but if it doesn’t impact a significant number you might rethink.
- What details do our customers already have?
- Be specific and lay out what is “known” publicly.
- What needs to be clarified or rectified?
- Be specific and lay out what needs to be said with greater clarity and purpose.
- What can be said in this moment to reiterate our brand purpose, vision and goals?
- Be specific about ways to reassure your customers to not lose faith in your brand.
- How do we hope to impact public opinion with this statement?
- Know why you’re making the statement and the goal for addressing it.
- How will we express this message and distribute it?
- Pick your audience channels and tell it in ways that are congruent with your voice.
- What is our next step if our response is not received well?
- Have a plan for how to mitigate further challenges if the initial response is not enough.
No one wants a PR Crisis, but knowing the problems that require a response from the ones that don’t takes insight.
If LesserEvil Snacks has filtered their response with these questions things would have been different.
Question #1 would have ended the discussion.
Question #2 would have sealed the deal with any doubters.
Question #7 would have made sure the brand voice and messaging remained intact.
Take a lesson from the PR and brand messaging misstep of LesserEvil Snacks and do better in your business.
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