#ConsumerCorner: the power of reactive marketing – How brands responded to the CrowdStrike chaos

The recent CrowdStrike outage caused utter carnage across the globe. Flights were cancelled, hospitals were forced to delay operations and payments were severely disrupted, meaning businesses were facing significant financial losses by the minute. Essentially, any company who relied heavily on digital infrastructure faced probably one of the largest IT headaches in history.

But while businesses across the world were frantically trying to navigate through the chaos, marketing teams were getting their heads together to come up with a way to jump on the newsworthiness of what has been described as the “largest IT outage in history.”

Here are some of the most successful examples of how companies quickly leveraged the CrowdStrike outage opportunity to promote their brands:

Decathlon

French sporting goods retailer, Decathlon, quickly jumped on the news by launching a digital out-of-home and social advertising campaign to encourage people who were experiencing technical glitches on their computer to get outside.

The creative replicated the iconic “blue screen of death” that many Windows users were faced with as a result of the outage, which read “Outage? Get outside. Enjoy 50% off on our outdoor goods”, alongside a giant QR code that drove viewers directly to its website.

KitKat

Nestle’s much-loved biscuit brand, KitKat, saw the perfect opportunity to leverage its famous “Have a Break, Have a KitKat” strapline and quickly responded by publishing an Instagram post that poked a bit of fun at the situation.

Like Decathlon’s creative, KitKat’s Instagram post was designed to look like the Windows error message, which read “Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart, a.k.a. it’s taking a break. You should have a break and recharge too. XX% complete.”

Unsurprisingly, both campaigns immediately went viral across social media channels as soon as they launched, showing just how successful reactive marketing can be.

System-1, a London-based creative advertising effectiveness platform tested the two ads with 300 consumers to understand whether the ads created useful brand emotions for long-term and short-term sales effects.

According to the results, by using famous and unique brand assets, including logo and colour, Decathlon and KitKat’s reactive creatives led to 93%+ brand recognition each and thanks to the clever humour during a relevant moment, both built positive emotions among consumers, giving both ads strong, long-term creative effectiveness.

While these elements are important when it comes to creating a successful reactive marketing campaign, the real key is speed. Those brands who can quickly pivot in order to respond to a global news moment will be the ones to succeed.