This week, Macklemore has been dropped as the support act from Ed Sheeran’s tour for using their platform to talk about Palestine. The fallout has been huge on all sides, with reputations on unstable ground as every news outlet and person on social media shares their opinion.
We look at reputation, crisis comms and what happens when you say nothing.
Controversy
Commenting on politics can often feel like a dangerous path, but can saying nothing sometimes be more dangerous?
Ed Sheeran has spent decades building his reputation and personal brand as down-to-earth and welcoming for everyone. The plaid-shirt singer repeatedly says he doesn’t comment on politics if it’s not about music. “Nobody buys my records going: ‘I wonder what he thinks about politics?'”
Yet holding fast to that approach is the very thing causing this week’s crisis. What is his crisis comms approach?
Reputational effect of speaking out
The situation: During his support set, Macklemore gave a speech saying “Free Palestine” and showed images of Gaza.
Future venues on Ed Sheeran’s ‘Loop’ tour, notably Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium, have claimed that they refuse to allow “hate speech” to be made at their stadiums.
Tour promoters dropped Macklemore from the lineup in order to allow Sheeran’s tour to continue.
Crisis comms: Macklemore has been clear about his position. In a video of the speech, he said: “I said Free Palestine. I want those words to be loud and clear.” It received over two million likes.
He has continued to defend his decision to speak publicly, saying his message is about peace, love and equality.
There have been consequences but there has also been support.
Response: All the other support acts have removed themselves from the tour, standing in solidarity with Macklemore and Palestine. Support act Finneas said, “Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed.”
The reputational trade-off of taking a public position is that you make your values clear. Some people may disagree with you. Others may feel more connected to you because of them.
Reputational effect of staying silent
The situation: Staying neutral doesn’t mean nothing happens. You’re communicating whether you choose to say something, choose to do something or not, and Ed Sheeran is facing one of the biggest crises of his career.
Crisis comms: Sheeran has released reactive statements saying: “I am not complicit. I have my personal views on the devastating conflict”. He says he chooses not to speak publicly and support causes in his own way, saying he would not cancel shows and let down fans or abandon the touring crew.
Kraft has announced Ed Sheeran asked him to match a $2 million donation to Palestinian organisations and is planning “to reach out to other venue owners… to work together to build bridges.” Macklemore has said he is donating $1 million “to bring conversations back to where they should be: the Palestinian people”. Ed Sheeran hasn’t spoken publicly about the donations yet: Macklemore has posted on Instagram.
The response: The megastar and household name lost 150,000 Instagram followers since the announcement; from Pink to Ms Rachel has an opinion one way or the other about Ed Sheeran choosing to continue his tour.
Greta Thunberg says: “Full solidarity and free Palestine. Artists’ very active silence in the face of injustice and genocide will not be forgotten”. Wicked star Marissa Bode, who is in a wheelchair, said “Ed Sheeran, my legs may not work like they used to before but at least I have a spine.”
Meanwhile, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy supported Sheeran, saying: “He’s one of our most successful artists and also one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with … I have enormous sympathy for the position that he finds himself in.”
Can reputation help you survive a crisis?
Reputation is a bit like credit in the bank.
You build it gradually through hundreds or thousands of interactions with customers, employees, journalists and your wider audience.
When everything is going well, you might not think much about it but it is strengthened over time, through PR efforts and how you appear.
Then a crisis happens.
Suddenly, all that accumulated reputation becomes part of the conversation.
Reputation doesn’t prevent a crisis but it influences the starting point when one arrives. If you’re starting from a position of low visibility or limited trust, a crisis can make recovery much harder.
Sheeran has spent decades building an approachable, familiar personal brand. His social media presence often feels deliberately ordinary: books, hikes, train journeys, charity work, kitten rescues and life away from the stage.
That doesn’t make him immune to criticism, but it does mean people aren’t encountering this situation without any existing perception of who he is.
Crisis comms
A strong reputation is only one side of the equation. The other is what you do when something goes wrong.
In this case, Sheeran’s first response was to be aware of what was being said, acknowledge with sympathy and explain. He spoke directly to his millions of followers through Instagram rather than a media outlet.
Macklemore’s approach was also via Instagram. He shared a video of the speech that got him removed from the tour and carried on the conversation and amplified the message rather than staying silent.
Crises don’t always look like this. It could be a cyber attack, an unhappy customer going viral, an employee complaint, a regulatory issue, a business decision that attracts criticism or something you simply didn’t see coming.
You can’t predict every crisis but you can build the reputation that exists before one arrives, and you can have a plan for how you’ll respond when it does.
Your response can make all the difference between success and failure. So, what can a business do to make sure they’re ahead of the game, avoiding unnecessary reputational and financial damage?
Read our crisis comms blog for more: How to handle a PR crisis – before, during and after
Reputation is a fluid and fickle beast; it takes years to build and minutes to break. The 2020s seem to have been back-to-back crises, like a game of apocalypse bingo that no one actually wants to play, but they’ve locked the bingo hall and we can’t get out.
No one is immune from reputational damage. Whether you’re a financial services business owner or you’ve sold 120 million records, how you appear publicly affects your business, your brand, your sales and your longevity.
And as the global crisis bingo card gets more stamps on it by the day, it is paramount to build trust with your audience and have a crisis plan for if the unexpected should happen.
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