Consumer Brand Stories: Case Studies and Brand Profiles

Consumer brand stories are Everything-PR's case studies and profiles of food, beverage, snack, retail and CPG brands, grouped by what they teach: failures and backlash, turnarounds, category builders and brand profiles. Each entry links to a full story with dates, figures and sources, and this page grows as new stories publish.

Which consumer brand failures and backlash stories has EPR covered?

These stories show what happens when a campaign, redesign or product problem collides with consumers, and how each brand responded.

• Pepsi's Kendall Jenner ad: the 2017 spot Pepsi pulled within a day.
• Tropicana's 2009 packaging redesign: a 20% unit sales drop and a reversal in under two months.
• Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch: what the boycott cost and whether the brand has recovered.
• Target's boycott and recovery
• Cracker Barrel's logo crisis: an 8-day rebrand reversal.
• Converse's ad backlash and response
• Jaguar's Copy Nothing rebrand
• McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit: litigation PR and public perception.
• McDonald's CEO and the Big Arch bite
• Wendy's chili finger hoax
• Stella and Chewy's and the raw pet food listeria cycle

For more crisis coverage, see EPR's crisis communications section.

Which consumer brand turnaround stories has EPR covered?

Turnaround stories explain how a brand recovered share, trust or relevance, and what it changed to do so.

• Domino's pizza turnaround: a food PR masterclass.
• Dunkin' PR strategy: the rename, the creator drink and the store growth plan.
• Has Bud Light recovered?
• Target's road back from the boycott

Which brand-building and campaign stories has EPR covered?

These stories explain how brands built a category position or a campaign people still cite.

• Oreo's marketing strategy: a 1912 cookie that stays current.
• Oreo's Dunk in the Dark and the Daily Twist.
• Newsjacking and the Oreo playbook
• High Noon: how a vodka seltzer took over America.
• Absolut: how a vodka brand redefined global alcohol marketing.
• Dove's Real Beauty campaign
• The Farmer's Dog: fresh pet food direct to consumer.
• Old Spice campaign case study
• Reese's Pieces: PR and digital marketing.

Which consumer brand profiles has EPR published?

Brand profiles summarize a brand's PR and marketing strategy, its agencies and its moves.

• Liquid Death
• Olipop
• Poppi
• Chipotle
• McDonald's
• 7UP
• Cheerios
• Dunkin'

How does EPR choose which consumer brand stories to publish?

EPR publishes a consumer brand story when it has a dated, checkable event, named sources and a lesson another brand can use. Failures and reversals, such as a pulled ad or a reversed redesign, tend to draw the most readers, so the section covers them in depth. Category-building stories and brand profiles sit alongside them so readers can compare what worked with what did not.

Every story states its figures with a source and flags when numbers come from a brand or agency rather than independent data. Stories are updated when new data appears, and older pages that stop earning readers are folded into stronger ones.

Where can I find consumer PR guides, rankings and campaign lists?

• Consumer Brands and Retail, EPR's CPG PR hub.
• What is consumer PR?
• Top CPG PR agencies in 2026
• Food and beverage communications
• 25 best CPG marketing campaigns
• Best restaurant marketing campaigns
• 25 best alcohol digital marketing campaigns
• 25 beverage brands that got digital marketing right
• 25 cookie marketing and PR campaign ideas