66-crisis-playbook-global v1.0.0A

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---
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 — Legal, compliance, and data

Stop every related campaign IMMEDIATELY. Notify leadership. Consult counsel before doing anything else, and make no public statement before legal input. Route by trigger:

| Trigger | First move |
|---------|------------|
| Claim challenged as deceptive, or an endorsement ran without disclosure | Pause the asset, pull the substantiation file and the creator contract, route to counsel. FTC exposure attaches to the advertiser, not only the creator |
| Personal data exposed or accessed without authorization | Notify your data protection lead or counsel the moment you become aware. Under GDPR a controller has a 72-hour duty to report a qualifying breach to the supervisory authority, and affected individuals must be told without undue delay where the risk is high. Do not wait for full facts to start the clock |
| California or other US state privacy complaint (CCPA/CPRA and equivalents) | Route to counsel; preserve the request and response record, do not respond ad hoc |
| Platform policy enforcement (account restricted, ads disapproved at scale, page unpublished) | Do not spin up backup accounts. File the platform appeal, document the disputed asset, and fix the underlying policy issue |
| Regulated category (health, finance, insurance, credit, crypto) | Any claim issue escalates straight to legal review before any response is drafted |

This playbook coordinates the response. It does not give legal advice, and it does not replace counsel on any of the triggers above.

## Escalation matrix

| Level | Handled by | Who must know | Timeline |
|-------|------------|---------------|----------|
| L1 | Media buyer + leader | Leadership same day | 2-4 hours |
| L2 | Content + leader | Leadership if reach > 10K | 2-4 hours |
| L3 | Leader | Leadership immediately | 1-2 hours |
| L4 | Leadership + leader | Board or executive team if needed | Same day |
| L5 | Leadership + counsel | Board or executive team, plus the data protection lead for any data incident | Immediate |

## Do-not-do list

- Delete legitimate negative comments.
- Argue or trade emotional replies with an angry person.
- Respond before verifying the facts.
- Promise compensation or a fix you may not be able to deliver.
- Lie, or downplay the severity.
- Stay silent past 4 hours while a crisis spreads.
- Let a junior decide the response at L2 or above.
- Buy, incentivize, or suppress reviews to offset negative sentiment.
- Open replacement ad accounts to work around a platform enforcement action.
- Make a public statement on a legal or data matter before counsel has seen it.

## Output structure

```markdown
# Crisis Response — [Incident name] — [Date/time]

## 1. Initial assessment
| Item | Content |
|------|---------|
| Classification | L[1-5] — [type] |
| Origin | |
| Current scale | [estimated reach, number of channels] |
| Verified facts | |
| Unverified claims | |

## 2. Hour-by-hour response plan
| Time window | Action | Owner | Status |
|-------------|--------|-------|--------|
| 0-1h | | | |
| 1-4h | | | |
| 4-24h | | | |
| Day 2-7 | | | |

## 3. Messaging
Approved to say: [...]
Not to say: [...]
Single spokesperson: [...]
Channels used: [...]

## 4. Internal actions
| Task | Owner | Deadline |
|------|-------|----------|

## 5. Monitoring
| Metric | Before | After 24h | After 7 days |
|--------|--------|-----------|--------------|
| Sentiment | | | |
| Mention volume | | | |
| Inbox / complaints | | | |
```

## After the crisis

After one week: write the post-mortem (what happened, how it was handled, the outcome), update this playbook with the new lessons, and run a team session so it does not repeat. If the crisis was campaign-related, fold it into `63-campaign-retrospective-global`.

## Related skills

- `15-social-listening-global`: early detection before it becomes a crisis, and sentiment tracking during and after.
- `03-performance-eval-global`: root-cause diagnosis for L1 operational crises.
- `62-marketing-review-global`: approve the response content before publishing.
- `63-campaign-retrospective-global`: extract systemic lessons once it is resolved.
- `07-marketing-report-global`: report the impact on monthly KPIs.

## Quality checklist

- [ ] Classified to the correct level before responding
- [ ] Evidence archived with timestamps before anything was removed
- [ ] Facts in the response verified
- [ ] Response approved by the leader (mandatory at L2 and above)
- [ ] Single spokesperson — not several people answering differently
- [ ] Nothing on the do-not-do list was done
- [ ] Legal, data, and platform-enforcement triggers routed to counsel before any public statement
- [ ] Sentiment monitoring scheduled at 24 hours and 7 days
- [ ] Post-mortem scheduled within one week