Not all publicity is good publicity [WHITEPAPER]

A paper titled ’Positive Effects of Negative Publicity: When Negative Reviews Increase Sales’ by Jonah Berger, Alan T. Sorensen, Scott J. Rasmussen and published in Marketing Science finds that bad publicity can have positive effects, but only when the subject of the publicity is little-known.

Publicity

For example, a study of 240 fiction book titles reviewed by the New York Times found that for books by relatively unknown authors negative publicity increased sales by 45%. In contrast to the effect on lesser-known books, negative reviews of books by well-known authors were found to reduce sales by 15%. Reassuringly, the paper finds that positive reviews always increase sales. Subsequent studies found that bad reviews drew attention to books that would not have been heard of otherwise, and that the negative impression created by a bad review appears to diminish over time.

In researching this post, I also came across this post from Kelsey Libert which finds that negative stories attract more coverage and social shares than positive stories. However, she notes,

    “As we saw with Turing Pharmaceuticals and Peeple, company reputations can be irreversibly damaged when the brand itself is the source of conflict.”

Now books are not brands, and publicity is not sales. So do we have any evidence that bad publicity might have a positive effect on sales? Unfortunately, I cannot think of any, and there are plenty of examples that support the other side of the equation.

Look no further than Chipotle’s dismal sales and share performance in 2015  following food safety issues to recognize that bad publicity can have a very big impact on a well-known brand. Even though Chipotle has been praised for its response to the issues, including closing its stores to focus on the subject of food safety with staff, it may be some time before the brand recovers its previous positive momentum.

So what do you think? Is negative publicity always bad? What examples can you suggest where a brand benefited from negative publicity?

To view white paper CLICK HERE.