Brands are now used to hate! Domino's apologizes for compliment.

This is a goof-up of the worst kind. Domino's apologized to a fan who appreciated them for their Pizza service (image below).

I am handling the Online Reputation Monitoring team at my organization and we are responsible for responding to online consumer queries for some big brands. In our work for we make sure that consumer queries are responded by personalized message, unlike the automated messages that have become the order of the day.

In my doctoral work on Online Anti-Brand activities, I've observed that big brands, by the virtue of being big faced a lot of anti-brand activities. Researchers have termed this phenomenon as Negative Double Jeopardy. In my research, I've also found that a high relational orientation in response to online anti-brand activities leads to the highest evaluation of the brand.

To solve the problem of online hate, most big brands have outsourced reputation monitoring and management to digital agencies. They often fail to understand the critical nature of responses and the humanness required in the response. 

Hate has risen to such an extent that customers now look for the most convenient avenue to target the brand or vent out their frustration (Read: They "Like" you to abuse you - Angry customers on social media). While these angry customers give rise to the anti-brand narrative on social media, there are brand lovers that support the pro-brand narrative.

In the face of angry customers, brands need to make to sure that they integrate the pro-brand narrative with the anti-brand narrative for a strong brand performance on social media. Such an integration means strengthening the pro-brand narrative by supporting brand loyalists to weaken anti-brand narrative and make the brand strong.