/66-crisis-playbook-global

name: 66-crisis-playbook-global
description: "Use when a brand faces a communications crisis or a failing campaign: a five-level L1-L5 classification, a first-four-hours process, response templates by type, an escalation matrix, a do-not-do list, and a post-mortem. Trigger on 'crisis', 'crisis playbook', 'PR crisis', 'campaign is failing', 'content caused backlash', 'bad reviews spreading', 'complaint going viral', or 'we are being attacked online'."
metadata:
  version: 1.0.0
  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 timestamps; notify leadership immediately; weigh staying silent (a small-scale attack is amplified by responding) against speaking up (if it is spreading); never respond emotionally; report coordinated inauthentic behavior through the platform's own reporting flow; consult counsel if there are signs of defamation.

L5