Often when brands face boycott, it is due to their own actions and things that they did approve of to go out in the world. However, in this case, the brands had no intention to.

Evidently, despite having guidelines and policies against using religion or political matters in brand-related communication, how did this non-compliance happen? And after it did happen, how did the brands deal with it?

While India is busy boycotting Hyundai, there are lessons that every global company can learn from this communication disaster.

Lesson#1 – Do not comment on politics or religion. Review everything that is published representing your brand.

When an organization operates across borders and caters to customers of varied nationalities, religions and cultures, the last thing it should be doing is commenting on matters of politics or religion. Picking any side in such an argument will only make you look bad and alienate a large chunk of your potential customers. Clearly, it makes no business sense at all. In this case, as highlighted in the numerous apologies, the brands called these messages unsolicited and not in line with the corporate policy. Then why did this happen?

Today, companies sell in various countries through different business models – in some countries like India, they do have a local presence that can ensure compliance with global brand guidelines directly. However, in other countries, like Pakistan, they sell through independent dealers and franchisees, who as it seems now, have been operating with minimal or no oversight. Apparently, a similar event happened a few years ago as well, but in that episode, the brand caught the inappropriate post early on. Unfortunately, this time they couldn’t.

If a company is signing off the rights to use its brand name to a third party, perhaps it makes sense to invest ample time and energy in training these people about their policies and clearly communicate acceptable and unacceptable behaviours online.

Global organizations need to have better regional and global communication sync and need to be dialled into the nuances of every region they are operating in. Repeat offenders need to be penalized and controls should be put in place to review each piece of communication being sent out by such partners under your brand’s name.

Lesson #2 – Do Not Block People or Restrict Social Accounts. It will only make things worse.

You can’t win over your critics by blocking them. Blocking accounts does not silence people, on the contrary, it only adds fuel to fury. If you block people, they will only complain louder. . As is evident from this case, blocking users and restricting the account only led people to spam the brand’s global and other regional accounts, push the boycott trend further and take the fight out of the online world to the dealerships. Blocking people without explaining themselves made the brand look quite guilty and an accomplice to the crime. If the brand did not have the right answers at the time the first objections were raised or wanted to buy time before it responded to the audience, it could have just kept quiet. Sometimes silence is indeed golden. The brand would have been better off not commenting at all for a while than going into a shell and succumbing to pressure. If the audience doesn’t hear from the brand for a while, they might still cut them some slack thinking the

issue hasn’t come to their notice yet. But when they started blocking people without acknowledging the problem, people saw it as enemy action.

Lesson #3- If you don’t take control of the narrative in time, the narrative will take control instead. Respond first. Respond fast.

In this case, the response time of the brand was abysmal at best. The company took too long to issue a statement, and not once was there an apology in either of the versions. The first statement came out 31 hours after the crisis had begun and didn’t even address why this issue occurred or what was being done to prevent such things from happening again. The longer they took to give the right response, the easier it was for people to create a narrative against them. People assumed whatever they felt like about Hyundai’s stand on the matter as they were not there to defend themselves. The statement that came on the third day would have been a good first response but it came 2 days too late. Perhaps the communication team discovered the existence of Hyundai’s policy to not comment on political matters only after the first statement was already sent out. This mismanagement shows that there was no crisis communication mechanism or policy in place.

Hyundai wasn’t the only brand that faced a backlash in this manner for an unsolicited post, which was not in line with the company’s global policy. Other global organizations like Honda, Dominos, Pizza Hut, Bosch, Suzuki, Osaka, and others also saw similar non-compliant social media posts going out in representing their brands on the same day in the same country with respect to the same event. Evidently, when it comes to managing a crisis, many large companies have a plan… until they don’t. Perhaps global brands need to ponder that in the case of a country like Pakistan where most of the businesses are owned by people with political or military links, how safe is it to let your brand communications go unchecked.

In the world of social media, where public opinion reigns supreme, you need to tread carefully and come up with a well-thought-through response before you start reacting to public outrage. Your brand’s image is of great value and therefore must be protected fiercely. Remember, it takes years to build a brand, but only a few seconds, and a few clicks, to ruin it.