The Netflix Qwikster crisis ran 23 days. Announced September 18, 2011. Killed October 10, 2011. 800,000 subscribers lost. Stock down 75 percent. The canonical case study in customer-led brand reversals — and the five transferable lessons that continue to define modern crisis-response discipline.
Amazon's Kindle launched in 2007 and now anchors a content stack spanning e-books, audiobooks, video, Alexa, and the Rufus AI shopping layer.
Using analytics in your PR firm can help you achieve three important goals. First, it can create accountability. Then, you will be able to make data-driven decisions. And finally, you get meaningful reporting for management, shareholders, and potential clients.
5W's Ronn Torossian's new book For Immediate Release, is available for pre-order. Everything PR News gives and advanced review of what will become a desk reference for 21st Century PR professionals and business execs. Torossian proves he is, truly, a self-sharpening surgical tool for communications.
States can have bad PR news hit them too. A story in the Chicago Tribune reveals just how bad doing business in some US states can be. What could be worse PR than that in a depressed economy?
On September 15, 2011 — three days before the Qwikster announcement — Reed Hastings disclosed Netflix's expected one-million subscriber loss in a shareholder letter. The canonical case study in IR communications inside an active consumer crisis, and the satellite to EPR's Qwikster canonical case.
Originally published September 2011 on a hoax YouTube trailer that falsely implicated game studio The Creative Assembly in a fabricated offensive product. Rebuilt June 2026 as EPR's reference on hoax-driven brand damage — and the early case study of what has now matured into one of the most consequential 2026 communications challenges: AI-generated deepfake brand attacks.
Historical 2010 archive: the MC Hammer / Jay-Z YouTube-era feud. Studied today as an early case in asymmetric celebrity-feud marketing. For the canonical Jay-Z profile, see The Quiet Architect.
Endorsement economics in collapse — TAG-Heuer's 2011 decision to drop Tiger Woods, what the cascade of sponsor exits documented about reputation-as-revenue, and how the case study sits inside the broader celebrity-endorsement-fit literature.
The definitive ranking of brand safety in the answer-engine era. EPR introduces the first independent, structured measure of how ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews handle every major brand — across five pillars, A-to-F tiers, and ten verticals.