Philipp A. Rauschnabel: When we started this research project almost five years ago, the topic was on everyone's lips, partly due to newspaper reports. I myself often used vivid examples of shitstorms in my presentations, lectures and consulting projects. I was all the more surprised when I realized that although we had enough sensational examples, we actually knew nothing about the "laws" and mechanisms of these shitstorms. As is usual with scientists, we became curious and set up a project. Our interest facebook data was to understand shitstorms as comprehensively as possible in terms of their triggers, amplifiers and progression.
cba-consequences
Question: “Shitstorm” is obviously a specifically German term; in the study you only talk about the “Collaborative Brand Attack”. Is the noun simply not used in English-speaking countries, or is the shitstorm generally a German phenomenon? Are German brands more afraid of it than American companies?
Nadine Kammerlander: Shitstorms can also occur in the USA, and we came across a few examples in our research. It is difficult to quantify whether the phenomenon occurs more or less in Europe than in the USA. It probably also depends on the culture how much "joy" or motivation users feel in participating in such shitstorms themselves. The power of the consumer is of course different in different parts of the world. But the fact is that we have many strong brands in Germany - it is only understandable that the companies in question want to do everything they can to avoid damaging their value.
The main reason for creating the term Collaborative Brand Attacks (CBAs for short) was that the term “shitstorm” is frowned upon in English-speaking countries. It is easy to understand why this is the case if you imagine having to read the German translation of the term in texts.
Question: Can one distinguish between different types of such “brand attacks”, or do they essentially always follow a similar pattern?