Case Study: DiGiorno achieves rapid crisis recovery and restored public goodwill with Crimson Hexagon social analytics

Analyzing the long-term effects on DiGiorno's brand image after a PR crisis

DiGiorno Pizza faced a sudden brand crisis in September 2014 after mistakenly using the trending hashtag #WhyIStayed — a conversation about domestic violence — to promote pizza. The tweet was deleted within minutes, but screenshots circulated and the brand received significant backlash; Crimson Hexagon analyzed the social conversation before, during, and after the incident to understand public reaction and the impact on DiGiorno’s social presence.

DiGiorno responded quickly: it deleted the post, issued more than 200 personal apologies on Twitter, and engaged transparently and empathetically with offended users. Crimson Hexagon’s ForSight analysis showed that 72% of brand conversation during the first ten days was crisis-related but that 21% of that crisis discussion was positive (versus 5% negative); the controversy faded within weeks and longer-term metrics recovered — by Nov–Mar positive sentiment rose to 27% and negative fell to 7% — illustrating that fast, sincere apologies plus social listening can minimize long-term damage.

DiGiorno