No brand wants this

Olson Zaltman has just published an article on Medium about the perils brands face when wading into political issues.

Exhibit A: Papa John’s. Its CEO John Schnatter has been quite vocal about his opposition to NFL players kneeling before games, going so far as to blame the league for his company’s falling stock price. Now the white supremacist publication The Daily Stormer has claimed Papa John’s as the “official pizza of the alt-right.”

Schnatter has been forced to come out and condemn white supremacists and urge them not to buy his pizza. Nevertheless, no brand wants to find itself in this position – and it seems like it all could have been avoided pretty easily.