/66-crisis-playbook-global

name: 66-crisis-playbook-global
description: "Use when a brand faces a communications CRISIS or a campaign is failing in public — L1 to L5 severity classification, a first-four-hours process, response templates by type, an escalation matrix, a do-not-do list, holding statements, and a post-mortem. Trigger on 'PR crisis', 'crisis playbook', 'a complaint is going viral', 'bad reviews are spreading', 'our content caused backlash', 'we are getting attacked online'. Also use when the user forwards an angry thread and asks what to do right now. Not for — monitoring before anything blows up, see `15-social-listening-global`; diagnosing weak performance numbers, see `03-performance-eval-global`; the routine post-campaign review, see `63-campaign-retrospective-global`."
metadata:
  version: 1.0.1
  category: operations
license: MIT
triggers:
  - "crisis"
  - "crisis playbook"
  - "PR crisis"
  - "campaign is failing"
  - "content caused backlash"
  - "bad reviews spreading"
  - "complaint going viral"
  - "brand under attack online"
output: "File .md — crisis classification, hour-by-hour response plan, who does what, what to say and not say, escalation matrix, post-mortem"
related:
  - 15-social-listening-global
  - 03-performance-eval-global
  - 63-campaign-retrospective-global
  - 07-marketing-report-global
  - 62-marketing-review-global

Crisis Playbook (Global)

> A crisis arrives without warning, so the playbook must exist before it is needed. Three ground rules: (1) do not react before you have facts — most crises look worse than they are in the first 30 minutes; (2) do not stay silent past 4 hours on a spreading crisis, because silence reads as admission; (3) handled well, a crisis builds trust; handled badly, it destroys it permanently.

Information gathering

Read the `15-social-listening-global` report if available (early detection). Before doing anything, answer 4 questions:

1. **What type of crisis is this?** Match it against the L1-L5 table below. 2. **How fast is it spreading?** Ten people or ten thousand? One channel, or has it jumped channels? 3. **Where did it start?** An unhappy customer, a creator or influencer, a competitor, a regulator, or the press? 4. **What is actually true?** Which fact is disputed, do you have evidence, and do you have enough to respond at all?

If you do not have enough information: publish one short line confirming you are investigating and commit to a specific update time. Do not go silent, and do not respond to unverified claims.

Principles

1. **Assess first, react second.** Thirty to sixty minutes of investigation beats a wrong answer in five minutes. 2. **Never silent past 4 hours** on a spreading crisis. 3. **Do not delete legitimate negative comments** (clear spam and hate speech excepted) — deleting escalates. 4. **Do not argue in public.** Move the complainant to a private channel. 5. **Do not respond while emotional.** Draft it, wait 30 minutes, reread, then send. 6. **Do not promise what you cannot deliver**, and do not minimize the facts. 7. **L3 and above must go to the leader.** Never self-handled. 8. **Regulated categories escalate straight to legal.** In health, finance, insurance, credit, and crypto, any challenge to a claim goes directly to legal review — do not draft a public response first.

Crisis classification

| Level | Type | Example | Priority | Response window | |-------|------|---------|----------|-----------------| | L1 | Operational — campaign or system failure, severe KPI miss | Ads not delivering, landing page down, tracking broken | High | 2-4 hours | | L2 | Content — inaccurate or misleading content published | Misleading caption, wrong figure, inappropriate image | High | 2-4 hours | | L3 | Reputation — customer complaint spreading | Viral one-star review, exposé thread | Critical | 1-2 hours | | L4 | Brand attack — coordinated | Mass fake reviews, competitor smear, brigading | Critical | Same day | | L5 | Legal / compliance / data | Deceptive-advertising or undisclosed-endorsement complaint, personal data breach, IP infringement, platform enforcement action | Critical + counsel | Immediate |

Process by level

L1 — Operational

In the first 2 hours: pull the full data set to find where the real number sits; diagnose the root cause (run `03-performance-eval-global`); notify leadership with a hypothesis and actions; deploy the emergency fix.

Report template: "Campaign [X] is at [actual] against a target of [target]. Preliminary cause: [hypothesis]. In progress: [3 actions]. Next update at [time]."

L2 — Content

Immediately: screenshot and archive the evidence BEFORE removing anything; take down the affected post (faster than apologizing on the broken post); notify the leader, do not self-handle.

Within 2-4 hours: establish what was wrong, who was affected, and the reach; draft the response and have the leader approve it before posting (run `62-marketing-review-global`).

Response template: "We found that [content X] in our [date] post contained [an error / inaccurate information]. We have [removed / corrected] it and apologize for the confusion. The correct information is: [...]. Thanks to [the person who flagged it] for raising it."

L3 — Reputation

Immediately: do NOT delete comments, do NOT argue in public, archive all evidence with timestamps.

Within 1-2 hours: verify whether the complaint is legitimate.

• If legitimate: acknowledge, apologize, fix, compensate. Template: "[Name], we're sorry about this experience. That is not the standard we intend. Could you send us a direct message so we can resolve it with you directly?"
• If not legitimate: state the facts calmly with evidence, and do not escalate the tone.

Note: in US and EU markets, review platforms are part of the crisis surface. Respond on the platform where the complaint lives, and never incentivize or suppress reviews to offset it — that is itself an FTC issue.

L4 — Brand attack

Archive evidence with timest