Reactive marketing is the high-wire act of the social world. Get it right and you earn a week of free press, a bump in followers and the grudging respect of your peers. Get it wrong and you become the cautionary tale in everyone else's Monday morning meeting. 2021 has already produced some absolute belters. Here is who has been doing it properly, and what we can all steal from them.
Aldi vs Marks and Spencer: Cuthbert the Caterpillar
You have to hand it to Aldi. When M&S took them to court over the resemblance between Colin the Caterpillar and Aldi's Cuthbert, most brands would have gone quiet. Aldi went the other way entirely. Free Cuthbert became a trending hashtag, a fundraising campaign for cancer charities appeared out of nowhere, and Aldi milked it for weeks without ever quite crossing the line. Masterclass in turning a legal threat into a PR campaign.
Steal this: Do not hide from conflict. If it is a fight your audience cares about, lean in with a wink.
Ryanair, As Always
Whoever runs the Ryanair socials has clearly been given the keys and told to crash the car if they feel like it. The consistent willingness to take the mickey out of their own reputation for tiny seats and hidden fees is a bizarre but effective strategy. It works because it is honest. We all know Ryanair is not a luxury experience. They know we know. That shared understanding is strangely endearing.
Steal this: Self-deprecation, used sparingly, builds more trust than any polished brand campaign.
Weetabix and Beans
A single tweet with a photo of Weetabix topped with Heinz beans broke the internet for a solid forty-eight hours. Every brand with a social media manager and a pulse jumped in. Some were brilliant, some were forgettable, but the Weetabix team earned more organic reach in one morning than most brands achieve in a year. The genius was how daft and low-effort the original post was. No focus group would have signed that off, and that is exactly why it worked.
- Simplicity wins: Do not over-engineer the joke. The best reactive posts look like they took ninety seconds.
- Timing is everything: You have a window of about two hours before the moment is dead. Move quickly or do not move at all.
- Not every trend is yours: If your brand voice does not fit, sit it out. Forced reactive is worse than silence.
Greggs and the Vegan Steak Bake
Greggs continues to prove that a Newcastle-born bakery can teach global FMCG brands how to do social. The launch content around the vegan steak bake earlier this year was perfectly pitched, irreverent, regional, and self-aware. They know their audience and they never pretend to be something they are not. Credit where it is due, a big shoutout to one of our own, absolutely nailing it.
Innocent Drinks, Still Going
The Innocent tone of voice is genuinely hard to imitate. Chatty, slightly chaotic, but always on-brand. Their reactive posts this year around various news moments have been a reminder that a long-term commitment to a distinct voice pays off. You cannot suddenly become Innocent in a crisis. You have to have been Innocent for years.
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Book My Social AuditWhat the Losers Got Wrong
For every brand on this list, there were dozens who tried and face-planted. The pattern is always the same. Senior leaders demanding a presence in a trend they do not understand. A social media manager left to frankenstein something together. A post that screams "fellow kids" and gets roundly mocked in the quote tweets. There is no shame in sitting one out. There is plenty of shame in crowbarring your logo into a meme about something genuinely serious.
The Rules of Reactive, Learned the Hard Way
- Speed beats polish: Within reason. Perfect and late is the worst of both worlds.
- Know your lane: Not every trend needs your two pence.
- Have an approval process for reactive: Singular. Not a committee. One sensible person who can sign off in ten minutes.
- Listen before posting: Tools like Tweetdeck, or whatever it is being rebranded as this week, exist for a reason.
- Accept the misses: Nine out of ten reactive posts will be fine. The tenth will earn its keep for the whole year.
If you want to build the muscle that lets you move that fast, our guide to the Instagram algorithm and our overview of social media tools are both solid places to start.
2021 is not over yet. There is plenty of time for another brand to produce the reactive moment of the year. Just, please, do not let it be yours for the wrong reasons.
