India is a hub of contrasting religious, cultural and social conversations. And for brands operating in this very environment, a small slip can quickly become a crisis. A campaign, similar to poetry, can be created with one intention, but received with another and within hours, trigger questions around the very origin of the idea. But in moments like this, what truly matters is how the brands respond.
Take for example, the recent GIVA Raksha Bandhan controversy. The jewellery brand’s campaign featuring Kriti Sanon drew criticism over her outfit and the portrayal of the occasion. While Sanon defended the creative, GIVA withdrew the campaign saying it did so out of respect for Indian culture and sentiments. But later again, the brand stated that the decision was driven by safety concerns for employees at some stores.
The change in explanation, however, highlights the inconsistencies in crisis communication and brings several questions in the force. When the reason for a decision appears to evolve, what does that tell consumers? And how should a brand respond when the backlash forces it to choose between acknowledging concerns, explaining its intent and standing by its creative? What happens to the people who liked the campaign and what does a withdrawal tell consumers who believed the brand had done nothing wrong?
The first answer is simple: brands need to distinguish between actual feedback and sheer volume. “Backlash isn't always feedback, it's volume. Volume often comes from whoever shouts loudest in the first six hours, not necessarily from the audience the campaign was actually built for,” explains Saurabh Parmar, a Fractional CMO.
Social media can make every reaction look equally important. But in reality it is not. A post from a vocal critic, a political figure amplifying an issue and a customer who genuinely feels alienated may all appear as the same notification on a brand dashboard. They are not the same business problem.
Dilip Cherian, Image Guru, argues that brands need to measure both sides before deciding what the noise means. “The fundamental rule about managing a crisis is to do two things: measure the impact or the total sound effect, and the second is to drill down and go to what is called the second order impact—how many of the people it's impacting are likely to be your customers.”
The GIVA case makes this particularly interesting because withdrawing a campaign can itself create a second audience problem. Parmar believes the decision was strategically flawed. “They upset the people right of centre by launching the campaign, and then upset the liberals by withdrawing it. They managed to upset both segments of the population, and whoever their ICP was amongst these, by doing so.”
Vikram Kharvi, CEO, Bloomingdale PR, takes a harder view of what happened before the backlash. “Raksha Bandhan is not a shopping occasion. It is a family ritual with religion sitting behind it.” The issue, according to Kharvi, is not how quickly a brand responds, but whether it understood the occasion before switching on the camera. “Brands keep treating our festivals as a mood board,” he argues, adding that brands can reduce festivals to colours, music and familiar faces. The real problem often begins before the backlash. For a jewellery brand, understanding these codes should be basic market homework, not something discovered after a campaign starts trending.
And once the backlash arrives, Kharvi says brands must first distinguish between genuine customer concern and noise from a wider online or political debate. The former needs a response; the latter may simply need to burn out. That is where the role of crisis communication gets complicated.
But in situations where consumers are divided, Kharvi believes this is the group crisis playbooks routinely overlook. “Every crisis playbook accounts for the people attacking you. Almost none account for the people defending you. Which is strange, because the defenders are usually customers.” That is not merely a question of lost goodwill in the moment. It can affect what consumers are willing to defend the next time a brand faces criticism. His take is not necessarily to keep every campaign live. It is to be honest about why it is being withdrawn.
Ronita Mitra, Senior Marketing & Growth Strategist, offers a different view to this, arguing that withdrawing a campaign does not necessarily mean a brand has abandoned the belief behind it. “A brand may still continue to believe in the intent and message of its campaign while withdrawing it because the other risks are unacceptable.” She points to Tanishq’s ‘Ekatvam’ as an example, where the campaign was withdrawn amid concerns around the safety of employees and retail stores.
Drawing from her comment, we can then, apply the same perspective to the GIVA controversy, where safety concerns at some stores also became a factor in the decision to pull the campaign.
Cases to Learn From
However, not every backlash also requires retreat. Sometimes, standing by the work is the more coherent crisis response, particularly when the campaign reflects something the brand has consistently stood for. Nike’s 2018 ‘Believe in Something’ campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick faced boycotts and political criticism, yet the brand stayed with the message. Sandeep Rao, Managing Director, One Source, points to it as a case where conviction mattered. “Nike stuck by its stance. Nike saw the campaign hit gold. America was divided; until Nike won the audience over.” For Rao, the lesson begins much earlier than the crisis itself. “Any form or format of communication, B2C/B/G, needs to be pre-thought, not post-script.”
Surf Excel’s ‘Rang Laaye Sang’ Holi campaign is another example on point. The film showed a young girl saving her Muslim friend from being coloured while going to the mosque. Despite backlash, the brand did not withdraw it, instead tying the message back to its established ‘Daag Achhe Hain’ philosophy. The position for Surf Excel did not begin with that particular film. It already belonged to the brand. Mitra says this is what makes a strong brand response possible: “Strong brands have invested consistently for years in establishing their values and proposition where the campaign is a credible extension of what the brand has always stood for.”
But on the other hand, Tanishq’s 2020 ‘Ekatvam’ campaign showed an interfaith family organising a traditional baby shower a Hindu daughter-in-law. After a backlash and boycott calls, the brand withdrew the film, citing the wellbeing of employees, partners and store staff. But, Kharvi criticises the Tanishq case saying it never clearly defended the idea, nor clearly conceded that it had got the idea wrong. It simply went quiet.
Whereas, FabIndia’s ‘Jashn-e-Riwaaz’, criticised over its use of the Urdu phrase in a festive communication, was later clarified by distancing the collection from Diwali and stating that its actual festive campaign would be launched under a different title. Similarly, for Dabur’s 2021 Fem campaign featuring a same-sex couple celebrating Karwa Chauth. Following backlash and a warning of legal action from Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra, Dabur withdrew the campaign and issued an unconditional apology.
The lesson is not that withdrawal is wrong or standing firm is always brave. The response has to fit the problem: a process failure needs correction, a creative disagreement needs strategy, and a safety threat needs protection. Parmar points to New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, arguing that acknowledging a mistake, sometimes with humour, can work better than defensiveness. Not every crisis needs a fight or an apology; sometimes, a plain acknowledgement is enough.
The real crisis, then, is not always the backlash itself. It is not knowing what you stand for when the backlash arrives. But, it is also to be considered, does religious or cultural backlash carry a different kind of risk, one that makes brands more willing to retreat, even when they believe in the idea or stand with the right thing? And when the stakes involve identity, offence, employee safety or legal threats, where exactly is the line between protecting the business and standing by what it believes?
