This piece first appeared in the March 2026 edition of O’Dwyer’s Food and Beverage PR Magazine.
A rogue Reddit post. A misunderstood earnings call comment. These days, that’s all it takes to send a national restaurant chain into disarray. Internal memos, investor days and team-member social chatter are all ground zero for leaks and misinformation, creating a small spark that can be taken out of context and quickly turn into a wildfire for a brand if not managed proactively and effectively.
Today, information for consumer brands is traveling faster than ever, with customers at risk for alienation on topics as big or small as price increases or menu changes. Business decisions that may once have been considered standard operating procedure now run the risk of brand damage that can bleed into traffic, sales and share price. Everything must now be viewed through the lens of steering clear of a digital crisis.
The new reality for household name brands is this: Without proper support, misinformation moves fast, and reputation risk is real.
The last two years in particular have been an incredible time of change for the PR industry. With so much focus on how the industry can use AI to streamline efficiencies, the flipside for the communications industry is the proliferation of AI-derived content that scrapes various sources to create articles that are cobbled together, misleading or flat out wrong. And good luck finding an editor if you want to request a correction.
While clients leverage AI to innovate menus, optimize supply chain logistics, garner detailed customer insights and realize many other benefits, it has also created a clear and growing challenge in the communications field: the spread of misinformation that, if unchecked, can spell lasting brand damage.
Welcome to the misinformation economy.
Misinformation is spreading
Inaccurate claims and misconstrued news about everything from a brand’s food, experience, internal policies and procedures are piling up across industries. This can be further fueled by social media, AI and even bots potentially deployed by bad actors, creating a wide array of challenges for companies struggling to control their own narrative and protect their brand. The problem is compounding. Not only is misinformation inaccurate or taken out of context, but more often than not, it’s exaggerated, emotionally charged and engineered to spread fast. This can be particularly damaging for public companies, where even the slightest news report can meaningfully drive investor reactions and impact share price.
When it rains, it pours: the domino effect
In today’s highly competitive environment, speed wins. One incorrect story can quickly domino for a brand, particularly those with a household name. Consumers are naturally curious, and name recognition sells. As a result, we’re seeing a significant acceleration of domino coverage, with news outlets reporting on earlier inaccurate stories, creating a tangled narrative web that requires constant surveillance and proactive corrections to defend a brand’s reputation. Sometimes intentions are harmless—an article may be misleading or lack content while not being factually wrong. But other times, it stems from a publication carefully engineering a headline or framing a story in pursuit of clicks.
Unfortunately, this domino effect typically doesn’t lean in the company’s favor. From a communications perspective, follow-on coverage creates a groundswell effect where companies are forced to repeatedly respond and correct misinformation across multiple outlets. In many instances, it can escalate to require direct engagement with key stakeholders, including internal team members, franchisees, investors and business partners, which takes time, impairs relationships and burns up resources.
The margin for silence has vanished.
As a result, the need for an always-on communications strategy is more critical than ever. While at one point that approach focused on proactive pitching, today of equal importance is proactive reputation management through aggressive monitoring, media dialogue and corrections to ensure a company is presented in a factual way.
Social media: the battlefield and the fire hose
While social media is the culprit for a lot of misinformation, it can both ignite and extinguish a runaway false narrative crisis for a brand. Brands must closely monitor conversations on social across platforms from Reddit, X and TikTok, where much of the consumer dialogue and reactions reside, and they need full teams in place to do so. Media will often look to trending themes on big brands for story ideas and companies need to be one step ahead. When misinformation abounds, brands are increasingly looking to their own social channels to directly comment on inaccurate and categorically false information. Brands must be ready to use their own corporate voice on social before customers start a digital riot that bleeds into brand reputation and business performance.
Quality over quantity: building trusted media relationships
Now more than ever, relationships matter. While not new, brands must have relationships at the leadership level where trust has been built with key media, allowing for open dialogue, confirmation of information and the ability to comment and respond to breaking news. A proactive and thoughtful approach is as important as ever in protecting brand reputation and maintaining trust with key stakeholders.
Maintain control and act swiftly
A key element in addressing misinformation is speed of response. Things move at lightspeed in 2026 with real‑time alerts and constant social media scrolling. Having information easily accessible can help cut through the noise and make it easier for reporters to cite a company’s LinkedIn post, Instagram update or website directly. This also ensures that information can quickly be distributed for comment and reshared on social channels in a way that directly reaches the brand’s end consumer.
Conclusion: partnership and preparedness wins
Countering misinformation in 2026 isn’t a part-time job. It requires a coordinated effort across communications (both internal and external), legal and leadership. Brands that invest in proactive storytelling, rapid response playbooks, trusted media relationships and a full court press on reputation protection will win in the end, developing trust across key constituents, from guests, team members, investors and more.
About the Authors
Jeff Priester
Jeff Priester is a Partner at ICR, where he advises clients on investor relations strategy and communications. With over a decade of experience across strategic communications and sell-side equity research, he brings a strong understanding of capital markets to his work.
A consumer industry expert, Jeff focuses on the restaurant industry and has advised companies including Texas Roadhouse, Dutch Bros, Middleby, BJ’s Restaurants and Kura Sushi USA. He has supported clients through IPOs, executive transitions, activism, proxy contests and other complex situations, partnering closely with management teams to effectively position their brand narrative and drive long-term value creation.
Liz DiTrapano
Liz DiTrapano is a Partner at ICR, where she develops strategic communications programs for consumer companies, with a focus on restaurants, franchised brands and restaurant technology providers. She helped launch the firm’s restaurant technology practice more than a decade ago and has since become a trusted advisor to brands at every stage of growth.
With more than 20 years of experience, Liz partners closely with executives to shape and deliver narratives that support business objectives. She also brings deep expertise in crisis communications and transaction work, including equity raises, M&A, IPOs and go-private transactions.
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