Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

In September 2015 the Environmental Protection Agency found that many Volkswagen cars sold in the United States were equipped with software that could falsely improve the performance of diesel engines on emissions tests. This cheating was subsequently acknowledged by the car maker.Among the many issues at stake for the company was one of public perception.

Anecdotal evidencate at the time of the incident suggested irreparable harm to the Volkswagen brand. So could Volkswagen recover in the short term in this regard? And, the broader question, how can you measure brand perception in times of scandal, particularly in an era where social media can cause negative news to proliferate and reverberate over time?

In the absence of direct empirical evidence, we wanted to find a way to tackle this important issue. We began our research with some key questions: How does social media sentiment change as a consequence of a public relations crisis? How does the public react to recovery efforts initiated by the company? How do topics of conversation shift as a consequence of a brand scandal and subsequent recovery efforts?...