Why Marketers Also Need to be Skilled Crisis Communicators

Before the internet, marketers worked tirelessly coordinating and creating billboard ads, tv commercials, and magazine spreads. There were months to create powerful campaigns that led to sales, revenue, and value. Marketing teams had their job, communications team also had theirs.

Then the internet happened.

Now, with the speed at which the online world and social media happen, crises happen at any minute and they happen fast. Marketing and crisis communications have merged and to be a good marketer, you need to know how to manage a crisis.

A perfect example of this was Pepsi’s ad with Kendall Jenner in the spring of 2017. The ad, which no doubt the marketing team worked on for a long time, had Kendall Jenner cross the picket line of protestors to offer a Pepsi to a cop. The ad left people outraged with many saying it trivialized police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Those marketers had to jump into crisis communication mode as they saw the backlash their ad caused. Pepsi had to issue a statement and pull the ad. I wonder if their marketing team was more versed in crisis communication if they could have prevented this.