The impact of negative communications through social media during the product crisis on the behavior of Egyptian audience toward purchase boycott:

Document Type : Original Article

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Assistant Professor, Department of Public Relations and Advertising, Faculty of Mass Communication - Cairo University.

Abstract

This study seeks to discover the relationship between the public’s assessment of the nature of communications via social media resulting from the passing of an organization in a crisis related to one of its products (negative / positive / balanced) and their behavior towards boycotting its purchase, by applying to the Ketchup Heinz crisis that was raised throughout the month of December 2016. January 2017
By applying the crisis communication model through social media to the case of Heinz, we will find that social media was one of the main factors in spreading the crisis and its exacerbation, with the recognition of the company itself in all its publications.
This crisis had a severe impact on consumer behavior towards Heinz ketchup and its products in general, slightly more than half of the sample who did not boycott or boycott the purchase and then returned to consuming Heinz ketchup (57.8%)
The company was late to put a video film explaining the stages of production, which the public has been demanding since 11/25, but the film was put on its page by the company on 12/9 with other footage of the factory, and the result of this delay was that a large number of the audience did not believe it.

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