PR Crisis Examples 2026-2027: 25 Cases and Lessons

The clearest PR crisis examples are Johnson & Johnson's 1982 Tylenol recall, Wells Fargo's 2016 accounts scandal, United Airlines' 2017 passenger removal and 2025 cases from Astronomer, Cracker Barrel, American Eagle and Marks & Spencer. Twenty-five cases follow, each with a date, what the company said and did, and one lesson, plus a summary table.

Originally published July 31, 2026. Updated November 9, 2026 with ten additional cases.

A crisis case earns a place in a training deck when it teaches one specific, repeatable lesson. This page holds to twenty-five. Each summary draws on pages on this site or on named reporting. For the doctrine behind the lessons, read the managing negative press guide, for the wording of the first message see what to say in a crisis statement, and for the hour-by-hour plan see the first 24 hours of a reputation crisis. More named cases by industry sit in the crisis communications case study library.

Which ten PR crisis examples come from this site's case files?

The first ten cases below span retail, technology, airlines, sports, finance and media.

1. Target (2013): a data breach that lingers. Target's 2013 data breach compromised customer payment records and drove shoppers away. Lesson (this site's analysis): measure recovery over years, not one press cycle, because search results keep repeating the original story. For the first-hours playbook, see cybersecurity PR in the first 24 hours.

2. Alarum (July 2026): a statement that promises cooperation and little else. On July 2, 2026, Alarum Technologies disclosed that the FBI had seized domains tied to its subsidiary NetNut, and on July 3 it said more domains had been seized and that service disruptions could have a material adverse effect on the business, according to securities-law firm notices carried by PR Newswire. Alarum's own statement pledged full cooperation with law enforcement, according to Quiver. Its shares closed at $8.02 on July 1 and $3.08 on July 6, as reported in the same notices, and Ynet reported a 71.3% fall on the Tel Aviv exchange. Lesson: a pledge to cooperate does not tell the market what happens to the business, so say what the company is doing about operations, customers and disclosure.

3. United Airlines (April 2017): three statements, one story. United's removal of a passenger from a flight led to three statements in quick succession, and the first drew heavy criticism. Lesson: the first statement sets the story, so acknowledge the harm before explaining policy. An earlier United case, the 2009 United Breaks Guitars video, is the subject of Ronn Torossian's Harvard Business School crisis lecture.

4. Lance Armstrong (2012 to 2018): a long denial. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued its report in October 2012, he admitted doping to Oprah Winfrey in January 2013, and on April 19, 2018 he agreed to pay $5 million to settle a federal fraud suit, according to Reuters. Lesson: the gap between denial and admission becomes the story, and legal costs can run for years after the admission.

5. Sony and Peter Rabbit (2018): the scene no one caught. A scene in the film Peter Rabbit mocked a character's allergy, a specific community objected, and Sony apologized. Lesson: review creative content for harm to a specific audience before release. The corporate apology guide shows what a strong apology contains.

6. Penn State (2012 and 2017): two crises in five years. Penn State faced the 2012 Sandusky cover-up findings and the 2017 Piazza hazing death. Lesson: a second crisis is read against the first, so an institution has to show what changed.

7. British Airways (May 2017): an outage that stranded 75,000 passengers. The IT failure stranded about 75,000 passengers, and the CEO's apology videos and a leaked staff email shaped the coverage. Lesson: the response has to keep pace with the story, because each gap becomes new coverage.

8. Wells Fargo (2016): apologies without enough accountability. The accounts scandal brought $185 million in penalties, two apologies to Congress, a pay clawback, the CEO's exit and branch closures. Lesson: an apology works only when action follows quickly.

9. Bill O'Reilly and Fox News (April 2017): advertisers decide. Advertisers pulled spots after reports about settlements, and Fox fired O'Reilly, as widely reported at the time. Lesson: in an advertising-funded business, advertiser reaction can end a crisis faster than the company's plan, so map who can end it.

10. UBS (2011): a CEO exit after a $2.3 billion loss. UBS lost $2.3 billion to unauthorized trading by Kweku Adoboli, and CEO Oswald Gruebel resigned, as widely reported at the time. Lesson: top-level accountability can close one chapter, but it does not answer questions about controls.

Which two classic PR crisis examples come from outside the files?

Two older, widely documented cases round out the first twelve because they set the standard the others are measured against.

11. Johnson & Johnson, the Tylenol recall (1982): the $100 million decision. Seven people in the Chicago area died after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules, according to a University of Central Florida study. Johnson & Johnson recalled about 31 million bottles nationwide at an estimated cost of $100 million, even though the contamination was limited to Chicago and the FDA did not require it, according to Everything-PR's account. Lesson: a costly recall ahead of any mandate can be cheaper than the alternative.

12. Chipotle (2015 onward): a long recovery. Food-safety outbreaks tied to Chipotle restaurants in 2015 hurt sales for years, and the company rebuilt its food-safety practices in public. Lesson: a food-safety crisis ends when the safety record is rebuilt, not when the news moves on.

Which three 2026 PR crisis examples were added in November?

Three 2026 cases were added in November 2026, each drawn from named trade or business reporting and each showing a different failure. Facts are attributed in the sentence that uses them.

13. Target (August 2026): a costume apology that critics rejected. Target pulled a children's "Glows Under Blacklight Circus Clown" Halloween costume and apologized after social media users said it resembled blackface and minstrel caricatures, according to a Global Banking & Finance Review factbox, which reported that Target's shares fell about 5% on August 25, 2026. Axios reported on September 3, 2026 that actress Viola Davis publicly rejected the apology. Lesson: an apology that does not name the harm to the people affected can be rejected in public, and the rejection becomes the next headline.

14. Good Good and Callaway (2026): blaming the partner. An ad showing Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark knocking creator Alexis Miestowski to the ground drew immediate backlash, and Good Good CEO Matt Kendrick apologized, according to Axios. After Callaway cut ties, Kendrick accused Callaway of letting Good Good take the fall, and by Axios's September 3, 2026 report both Kendrick and Good Good president Joe Flannery had left the company. PRovoke Media's Q3 2026 crisis review reported that Callaway CEO Chip Brewer acknowledged the company had approved the content before it was posted and said that approval should never have happened. Lesson: accusing a partner in public extends the story, so settle who approved what in private and say what each side will change.

15. Starbucks Korea (2026): a promotion pulled within hours. PRovoke Media's Q2 2026 crisis review reported that a Starbucks Korea promotion was withdrawn within hours and followed by multiple public apologies from Starbucks Korea and its parent, Shinsegae Group. The review said an experienced corporate affairs professional should have flagged the promotion. According to the Global Banking & Finance Review factbox, the South Korean unit reported what the company described as a "very significant" decline in sales, and the head of Starbucks Korea was dismissed. Lesson: a fast withdrawal and repeated apologies did not prevent the business impact, so the cheapest fix is a harm review before launch.

Which five 2025 PR crisis examples add new lessons?

Five 2025 cases show how fast a leadership, branding, advertising, cyber or media decision can turn into a crisis, and how differently the companies responded. Each fact below is attributed to the report that carries it.

16. Astronomer (July 2025): a leadership story closed in three days. On July 16, 2025, a Coldplay concert kiss cam at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts showed Astronomer CEO Andy Byron with the company's chief people officer, Kristin Cabot, according to Business Today. Astronomer said on July 18 that it had opened a formal investigation and, per Global News, it announced Byron's resignation on July 19, with co-founder Pete DeJoy as interim CEO. The company also called a circulating apology attributed to Byron fake, according to Entrepreneur. Lesson: moving from investigation to decision in about 72 hours, naming the standard that was missed and naming the interim leader, left the story little room to grow.

17. Cracker Barrel (August 2025): a defense, then a reversal. Cracker Barrel unveiled a new logo on August 18, 2025, and WHIO reported that its shares fell more than 10% in the days after. The company defended the design, then said on August 25 that it could have done a better job sharing who it is, and on August 26 it announced the new logo was going away and the "Old Timer" would remain, according to ABC News. CBS News reported the chain lost nearly $100 million in market value before the reversal, and CNN reported that President Trump had urged the change back. Lesson: a statement that defends a change one day and reverses it the next costs more credibility than either choice alone, so test rebrands with core customers and decide the fallback before launch.

18. American Eagle (July to September 2025): holding steady on a loud backlash. American Eagle's late July campaign "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans" drew accusations on social media and from commentators who linked the wordplay to eugenics, according to The Hollywood Reporter. CEO Jay Schottenstein told executives not to comment, assigned a team to monitor social media and ordered customer surveys, and the company kept the ads running, according to the Wall Street Journal as reported by Fox Business. Its stock rose 25% after the second-quarter earnings report, which cited record new customer acquisition. Lesson: when a backlash is loud, measure what customers actually do before deciding to apologize or pull a campaign, and expect the strategy to work only when the data supports it.

19. Marks & Spencer (April to November 2025): a date and a cost on the disruption. M&S suspended online orders on April 25, 2025 after a cyberattack and resumed clothing orders 46 days later, according to Reuters. On May 21 it said the attack would cost about 300 million pounds in operating profit and that disruption would run into July, hoping to halve the hit through insurance and cost control, according to Reuters as published by The Star. Underlying half-year profit fell 55.4% to 184.1 million pounds, according to Euronews. Lesson: giving the market a cost and a month early let customers and investors plan around the outage. The data breach response guide covers the first statement.

20. Disney and Jimmy Kimmel (September 2025): a reversal that left distributors out. ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live on September 17, 2025 after his remarks about the Charlie Kirk shooting, hours after FCC chair Brendan Carr warned broadcasters, according to Reuters. Disney said it acted to avoid further inflaming a tense situation, then announced on September 22 that the show would return the next day after conversations with Kimmel, according to Axios. Nexstar and Sinclair kept the show off their ABC stations until September 26, per TV Insider, which also relayed a reporter's unconfirmed claim of 1.7 million streaming cancellations. Lesson: a reversal holds only if it is explained as specifically as the original decision, and partners such as affiliates can act on their own timelines.

Which five PR crisis examples ended with a regulator or a market verdict?

Five older cases show what a crisis costs when the final word belongs to a regulator or the market, from airlines to autos, credit bureaus and social media.

21. Bud Light (April 2023): a statement that satisfied neither side. After a March and April 2023 promotion with influencer Dylan Mulvaney drew a boycott, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth said on April 14 that the company never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people, a statement that did not mention Mulvaney or the boycott, according to Fox Business. Two marketing executives took leaves of absence. By May, sales were down nearly 30% from the prior year and Anheuser-Busch had lost $27 billion in market value, according to Fox News. Lesson: a statement written to please every audience can satisfy none, so decide the position before the first sentence is drafted.

22. Southwest Airlines (December 2022 to December 2023): the penalty that rewarded early compensation. Southwest canceled more than 16,700 flights over 10 days in December 2022, according to the Spokesman-Review. On December 18, 2023 the Department of Transportation announced a record $140 million penalty that combined a $35 million cash fine, a $90 million voucher policy and a $33 million credit for frequent flyer points Southwest had already given passengers, according to TravelPulse. CEO Bob Jordan called the storm historic and the airline did not admit wrongdoing, per Reuters. Lesson: compensation given early counted against the penalty, so voluntary make-good programs have a measurable payoff.

23. Volkswagen (September 2015 to 2017): an apology before the full bill. The EPA issued a notice of violation on September 18, 2015 alleging software in 2009 to 2015 diesel cars that cheated emissions tests, and CEO Martin Winterkorn apologized, while shares fell 19% on September 21, according to Reuters as carried by the Daily FT. Volkswagen pleaded guilty on March 9, 2017 and accepted a $2.8 billion criminal fine plus a $1.5 billion civil penalty, according to Fox Business. The EPA said Winterkorn's 2018 indictment alleged he was told of the cheating in May 2014 and July 2015. Lesson: an apology cannot outrun later findings about what leaders knew, so state only what has been verified internally.

24. Equifax (2017 to 2019): judged against its own security promises. On July 22, 2019 the FTC announced that Equifax would pay at least $575 million, and possibly up to $700 million, to settle claims over a breach that exposed about 147 million people, according to the FTC. The FTC alleged that Equifax did not patch a flagged vulnerability and that its privacy policy still promised reasonable safeguards. The deal included a $300 million consumer fund and six free credit reports a year for seven years from January 2020. Lesson: a breach statement is read later against the company's own published promises, so audit those promises before a crisis.

25. Facebook and Cambridge Analytica (March 2018 to July 2019): disclosure delay became the finding. Reports in March 2018 said Cambridge Analytica obtained data on up to 87 million Facebook users, according to the AP as published by GV Wire. The AP reported that the SEC said Facebook discovered the misuse in 2015 and did not correct its disclosure for more than two years. On July 24, 2019 the FTC announced a $5 billion penalty, which Fortune reported was the largest ever for a privacy violation. Lesson: the time between discovery and disclosure is itself part of the record, so set an internal clock for disclosure on the day a problem is found.

What is the summary of all 25 PR crisis examples?

The table lists every case by company, year, crisis type and the one lesson it teaches.

What do the twenty-five PR crisis examples have in common?

Seven patterns repeat across the twenty-five cases, and they are this site's analysis.

Speed and substance both matter. A fast statement with nothing in it, as in Alarum's cooperation pledge, leaves questions open. Tylenol and Wells Fargo show that action has to follow words, and Astronomer shows how a fast decision closes a story.

Timelines run longer than a press cycle. Armstrong's case ran six years from the USADA report to the settlement, Equifax's ran two years to a federal settlement, and Chipotle's recovery ran for years.

The record does not forget. Target's breach, Penn State's two cases and Armstrong's denial all remain easy to find, and any new crisis is read against them.

Someone else may hold the leverage. Advertisers decided O'Reilly's exit, regulators and law enforcement set the pace for Alarum, Volkswagen and Equifax, and station groups overruled Disney on Kimmel.

A review before launch costs less than an apology after it. Target, Callaway, Starbucks Korea and Cracker Barrel each acted after the content was public.

A reversal needs an explanation. Cracker Barrel and Disney reversed within days, and each reversal drew its own coverage.

Data beats noise. American Eagle's measured hold and Southwest's early compensation both paid off because the companies acted on what customers did, not on what trended.

How do you build a crisis plan from these twenty-five examples?

You build a crisis plan by matching your company's biggest risks to the closest case above, not by copying all twenty-five. The table maps common crisis types to the example that teaches the matching lesson.

For a fill-in version of this mapping, use the crisis communication plan template.

What traps appear when applying these examples?

Five traps recur when companies apply these cases to their own planning.

Treating every crisis like Tylenol. J&J controlled the physical product and could pull it from shelves. A data breach or an allegation has no equivalent lever.

Measuring recovery by press coverage alone. Coverage fades before search results do, so track both.

Assuming a settlement ends the story. Armstrong's settlement ended his last legal matter, but not the way he is described.

Ignoring who else has leverage. Advertisers, regulators, station groups and law enforcement can set the pace instead of the company.

Copying a hold that worked once. American Eagle's silence worked because its customer data supported it, and Bud Light's silence did not.

Where should you go next?

Start with the managing negative press guide, which covers the first 24 hours, who speaks and when to correct. For the first message, see what to say in a crisis statement, and for apologies, see the corporate apology guide. More sourced cases follow the same format: Delta's 2016 outage and Toyota's recall. For recent cases, see Boeing's 2018 to 2024 record, the Caesars and MGM ransomware attacks and the Silicon Valley Bank run. If a crisis has already put negative coverage in search results, read whether you can really remove negative articles from Google. For breach and ransomware response, see the cybersecurity PR firm page, and for banking and finance crises like Wells Fargo, see the fintech PR firm page. If you are weighing outside help, read how to choose a crisis PR firm, and browse the crisis PR section for every crisis article on this site. Ronn Torossian is the founder and chairman of 5W, whose crisis PR practice handles these situations. For a wider library of crisis cases, see Everything-PR's crisis PR section.

Frequently asked questions

What is a recent PR crisis example from 2026?

Three 2026 cases are on this page. Alarum Technologies' July 2026 domain seizures cut its shares from $8.02 to $3.08 in five days, according to PR Newswire notices. Target pulled a Halloween costume in August 2026 and its shares fell about 5% on August 25, according to a Global Banking & Finance Review factbox. Good Good's CEO and president left after the Callaway dispute, according to Axios.

What are the most famous PR crisis examples?

The best-known PR crisis examples on this page are the 1982 Johnson & Johnson Tylenol recall, the 2016 Wells Fargo accounts scandal, United Airlines' 2017 passenger removal and Chipotle's food-safety outbreaks from 2015. Each is covered above with dated facts and one lesson.

Which PR crisis examples from 2025 should companies study?

Astronomer, Cracker Barrel, American Eagle, Marks & Spencer and Disney's Kimmel suspension are the five 2025 cases on this page. They cover an executive conduct story, a rebrand reversal, a held ad campaign, a cyberattack with a stated cost and a programming decision that distributors overruled.

What is the most important lesson across the twenty-five PR crisis examples?

Timelines run longer than most companies plan for. Armstrong's case ran six years from the USADA report to the settlement, Equifax's ran two years to a federal settlement, and Chipotle's recovery ran for years, so a real crisis resolves on a longer clock than a single press cycle.

Do older cases like Tylenol still apply today?

Yes, with one addition. The lesson to put the public first and recall early still holds, and today the crisis and the response both stay searchable for years.

How many crisis scenarios should a company plan for?

Plan for five to ten scenarios specific to the company's risks, each mapped to the closest example on this list. This is this site's recommendation, not a measured standard.

What should a first public statement say?

It should say what happened and what the company is doing about it, in that order, and name when the next update will come. The crisis statement guide covers the wording, and the managing negative press guide covers who speaks and when to correct.

Does a strong apology end a PR crisis?

No. An apology closes one chapter, but Wells Fargo's two apologies to Congress came with penalties, a pay clawback and the CEO's exit, and Target's 2026 apology was rejected in public, which shows the response has to name the harm and include action.