Scandal sells: when you should stay or leave an influencer as a brand

Scandal sells. Reality TV producers know this well, as do many influencers. When the right scandal hits, views soar, and attention multiplies. But it’s not just TV and social media that benefit; brands can also find opportunities amidst the chaos—if they play their cards right.

Yet, when a scandal breaks around an influencer, most brands instinctively distance themselves. The ones that thrive, however, take a step back, assess the landscape, and make a calculated decision: stick with the influencer and potentially ride a wave of skyrocketing engagement, or walk away to protect their reputation.

This is exactly what happened in the case of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”, a new Hulu show that follows a group of Mormon wives and mothers in Utah who call themselves MomTok. 

This group of women already had a big following on social media - audiences loved to see what it's like to be a “new age” Mormon mom. 

Then a scandal broke, and it was revealed that some of these moms from MomTok were part of a swingers group — Not exactly what you think of when you think of “Mormon mom” behavior. 

In the aftermath, the girls blew up even more on social media and even secured their own Hulu show, but they lost a lot of big name brand deals. Brands didn’t want to be associated with this type of scandal. But with millions of new eyes on these influencers, was that the right play? 

In this post, we'll explore how scandals can impact influencer-brand partnerships and when brands should stick around or walk away. Understanding audience sentiment is key—and that's where data comes into play.

But first, let’s explore why scandal sells.

Scandals make influencers more relatable

A lot of the influencers we follow on social media admittedly live pretty big lives - why else would we follow them? They are always sporting the newest designer handbag, taking another vacation, and flying away on their private jet. 

This among other things is what keeps an audience engaged. They are living what people perceive as the “dream life”. 

All this razzle dazzle, yes it’s cool to see, but it isn’t very relatable. 

So when an influencer experiences a scandal or a major hardship, people are all ears. They want to feel like these influencers are just like them. 

Scandals, breakups, heartache, loss, all these things are things that most people experience in real life. So when an influencer experiences this over the internet, people feel like they can relate to them. 

Let’s be honest, it's comforting to know that no one has it all figured out or is perfect 100% of the time. 

Forming an emotional connection 

When influencers go through these “relatable” experiences with their audience, they form a stronger emotional connection to them. Maybe the audience has never been caught in a Swinging Scandal, but they can relate to the aftermath of emotions someone feels when they screw up or a secret of theirs is exposed. 

Influencers who stay transparent and are vulnerable during this scandal actually end up with so many new followers and admirers. And brands should take advantage of this. They should put their money on influencers that audiences can *actually* relate to. 

So when the ladies from MomTok lost brand deals when the scandal broke in 2022, some brands actually stuck by them. In particular, Casetify stuck with MomTok influencer “Taylor Frankie Paul”. To her credit, she had been the most honest and transparent influencer to talk about the scandal. 

Here is a Casetify sponsored post on Taylor Frankie Paul’s Tiktok before the scandal broke, with 906K views: 

Here’s a Casetify sponsored post after the scandal broke, with double the views:

Increased audience engagement 

You can see in her comments above that not everyone is a superfan but controversies like this one lead to a spike in attention, and lots of public discussions through the comment section (good or bad). 

Whether the comments are good or bad, it’s still increased engagement and increased exposure for the influencer. 

Brands who partner with these influencers during a time like this leverage this newfound attention, and they reach a wider audience by doing so. 

Taylor Frankie Paul might not have been a fan favorite at the time but Casetify doubled its brand awareness in the second post, the one after the scandal. 

Better bang for your buck

While this might not always be the case, if an influencer finds themselves in hot water, and brands are jumping ship this means that they might be willing to work with your brand at a discount. 

The majority of their livelihood is earned through brand deals, so if their brand sponsors are leaving them left and right, they might be more likely to “take what they can get”. 

So, if you decide to go this route, your brand could potentially double its brand awareness at a fraction of the cost. 

Audiences appreciate brands that give out second chances 

In some cases, depending on the scandal of course, audiences may appreciate a brand who sticks by their influencer during difficult times. 

The key is that the influencer is being transparent and working on making amends or “healing”. A lot of times this might look like an influencer admitting to going to therapy or taking full responsibility and working on their behaviors. It might also mean a public apology. 

Whatever it is, as an influencer works to rebuild their reputation, some start to attract loyal and supportive fans. Everyone likes a comeback story.

If your brand is known as the brand that sticks by them, it can make audiences believe that you have compassion and understand that people are human and make mistakes. This can be a positive message to your consumers who might now see you in a new light. 

Reading this, you might be thinking “ya but some scandals are really bad and hard to come back from.” It’s true. Some scandals are way worse than others. 

After the Swinging scandal, the same influencer, Taylor Frankie Paul, was arrested and charged with domestic violence - that’s a situation where a brand should walk away. 

When to walk away 

Not every scandal sells so it's up to you to know when it’s time to leave an influencer partnership. 

When things get serious 

Brands should avoid sponsoring an influencer amid a scandal in the following situations:

• They’ve done something illegal 
• They partook in criminal behavior 
• There was sexual misconduct 
• They are being charged with fraud 
• They were violent 

In each of these cases, it would be smart for the brand to step away and avoid being associated with this type of behavior. 

Misaligned values 

Then there are scandals that aren’t so serious but it might become obvious that your brand and the influencer don’t share the same brand values. 

For example, a sustainable brand might want to walk away from an influencer who was caught dumping trash into the ocean (this is a loose example but you get the idea).  

Another piece to consider is if your core audience’s values are aligned with the influencer's values. Meaning is there audience compatibility? The best way to find out is by running a detailed audience analysis to see if this influencer even comes up as a top choice for your audience. There’s no point in doubling down on someone in the hot seat if your audience isn’t their audience too. 

Back in 2020 there was drama between two big makeup artist influencers; Tati Westbrook and James Charles.

Long story short, these two had a very public falling out and it was considered a big scandal in the makeup influencer world. 

Both Tati and James were shown in a bad light. 

So, a brand like Fenty Beauty might be considering ending their influencer partnership with Tati, or maybe they are going to double down now that so much more attention is on these makeup artists. 

By running a detailed audience analysis using a platform like *ahem* Audiense — Fenty Beauty can assess if she is still a top influencer for their audience and gauge how they feel about her: 

As you can see in the example above, she is still showing up as an audience favorite. Because there is so much compatibility between her and Fenty Beauty’s audience, they might choose to double down and take advantage of this increased attention. 

You can view the entire Fenty Beauty Audiense report here. 

Influencer boycotts 

Some scandals might not even seem that bad to you, but you have to do your research. 

Blake Lively is under fire right now for promoting her fashion choices while attending the premier of her movie “It Ends with us”. 

This might seem harmless since they did this to promote most movies, like the Barbie movie or “The Challengers”, but if you were in her comment section you would know that “It Ends With Us” was a movie about domestic violence, and audiences feel betrayed and disgusted by her behavior. 

Many people have boycotted her altogether, believing she should have put more emphasis on domestic violence and less emphasis on her fashion choices. I side with those audiences. 

If a brand were considering working with Blake during this time, all they would have to do is run a Tweet Binder report on everyone talking about the incident, and they would discover that there is negative sentiment around the movie star right now. The topic of discussion is around domestic violence - not a topic you want to be on the wrong side of. 

The internet was doubling down, and on August 10th a reporter uploaded an old interview with Blake that shows her being rude and disrespectful, adding flame to the fire. 

We can see that posts and activity around the star peaked after this was released. 

There is about 10% of the audience that is being extremely negative when they post about the star, and 72% is “neutral”. These posts are probably just stating the fact that this actress is under some heat right now. 

The most liked post further showed that people were liking and sharing negative commentary about the actress. 

Apology backlash 

Some influencers get it - they know that when they are caught doing something bad it's best to own up to it and be 100% transparent. Audiences can smell bullshit.

But there are so many out there that give half apologies, or ones that are clearly written by their PR team. 

People don’t care that an influencer can cry on cue and make a public apology. Audiences have to believe that the influencer is truly sorry, and they have to see them take full accountability. 

There’s nothing worse than when an influencer apologizes for the bad behavior but at the same time blames it on the fact that “they were going through a hard time”. 

So even if you can get past the scandal, if the apology isn’t received well by the audience, walk away.

In Blake's case, instead of acknowledging her oversight of the real issue of the movie (domestic violence), she made a post about domestic violence that audience’s saw as inauthentic, and too little too late. 

She may be Blake Lively, but she will have to work a lot harder than that to change audience perception before brands want to be associated with her again. 

When to stick around 

It’s hard to advise a brand when it is absolutely still okay to work with an influencer after a scandal. 

Each scandal should be assessed on a case by case basis, then it is up to a brand’s discretion whether or not an influencer can “come back” from said scandal. 

But our gut says that if the scandal it is probably okay to stick with an influencer if

• They made an honest minor mistake 
• They did something that was taken out of context, like told a joke that was taken one way but they didn’t mean it like that 
• There was an honest cultural misunderstanding, that they then apologize for 
• Progress is being made to make amends; like they are educating themselves so that they never make the mistake again, or they decide to donate to a certain charity related to the harm they might have done, 
• They have shown that they have grown and evolved into someone who would not make the same mistake again 
• They still align with your brand values and your audience approves

All of these are also contingent on whether the influencer has made a proper apology and was transparent about the situation from the start. 

Look for similar examples 

After all those considerations, If you are still in doubt of whether you should or shouldn’t work with an influencer after a big scandal, you can always look to those who came before you. 

Logan Paul and Jake Paul are two brother influencers that most of the world has heard about. Their audiences are massive and they are no stranger to a scandal. 

Back in 2018 Logan Paul posted a horrid Youtube video where he was exploring a Japanese forest and came upon a dead body. He filmed the body and his reaction to it, then posted this video to the internet. Rightfully so, many people were outraged and disgusted. It was completely disrespectful to the deceased and their family, and it was grotesque of him to post it online for clout. 

Logan quickly took accountability and posted a video of him apologizing that got 38 million views (it now has 63 million views). He explained that there was no excuse, and that he was ashamed of himself. He even told fans to stop sticking up for him. 

But this didn’t matter. He lost all his Youtube ad deals, and brands like Pepsi and HBO quickly ended their partnerships with him. 

Eventually in 2019, once he had made more amends and worked on himself, he partnered with smaller scale brands like SeatGeek, Ridge Wallet, and Honey. These brands chose to sponsor his popular podcast “Impaulsive”. 

I’m not saying they were right to do so, but I am also not their target audience. These brands recognized that the reward outweighed the risk, and by sponsoring Logan they now have access to his millions of listeners and fans. 

Looking for similar scandal examples can help you decide if it’s worth the risk. 

Scandal sells 

One thing is certain: scandals attract attention. But the real question for brands is whether that attention will translate into success or backfire. Some scandals are simply too significant to overcome, while others may reveal a deeper disconnect between an influencer and their audience.

Navigating these moments requires a nuanced understanding of your audience. It's about knowing your audience’s values and how they align (or clash) with those of the influencer. Successful brands don’t just react—they use audience intelligence to guide their strategy, ensuring they make informed decisions when scandal strikes.

Curious how your brand might navigate a scandalous situation? Dive into audience analysis to uncover insights that could make all the difference. Because when it comes to influencer partnerships, it's not just about the scandal itself, but how your audience perceives it.

Sign up for Audiense for free today and get a grasp on what your audience wants so you can make the right decisions for your brand.