Martha Stewart's Two Apologies: A Lesson for Founders
Earlier this month, Martha Stewart gave every founder a free lesson in crisis communications. It took her two statements to deliver one apology.
What happened
A now-deleted Instagram post showed Stewart in a homeless Halloween costume, with a caption that promoted her candle collection. Her first statement said she was distressed that the costume had offended people. Hours later came a second statement. In it, she said she had "really screwed up" and that her earlier statement "didn't go far enough."
The second statement is the apology. The first one is the reason she needed it.
Why the first statement failed
"Sorry you were offended" puts the problem on the audience. It describes their reaction instead of the decision that caused it. Readers notice that difference right away, and so do reporters, because it tells them the person apologizing still does not see what went wrong.
A real apology does three things. It names the action in plain words. It takes ownership without qualifiers. It says what will change. When any of those pieces is missing, the public fills in the blanks, and they rarely fill them in generously.
There is also a timing cost. A weak first statement does not buy time. It starts a second news cycle, because now the story is not only the mistake but the response to the mistake.
The product made it a brand story
A bad costume is a personal misstep. A bad costume attached to a product promotion is a brand decision.
Once the caption mentioned the candles, the story stopped being about taste and started being about judgment. Who approved this? Why did no one say no? Founders whose personal brand sells a product carry that risk every time they post, because the audience no longer separates the person from the business.
That is the part of this story that should keep founders up at night. Most brand crises do not start with a scandal. They start with a post that seemed clever in the moment and went out without a second set of eyes.
Three rules for founders
Apologize for the action, not the reaction. Name what you did. "We used a costume that made light of homelessness" is an apology. "We are sorry some people were upset" is not.
Keep hardship out of your marketing. Homelessness is not a costume, and it is never a marketing hook. The same goes for illness, poverty, tragedy and any experience your customers may be living through right now.
Get it right the first time. Every revision becomes its own headline, and the correction often travels further than the original statement.
Build the review step before you need it
The fix for this kind of crisis is upstream, long before anyone writes an apology.
Put one person outside your inner circle on the approval path for any post that ties your face to a product. Their job is to ask, "How could this be read the wrong way?"
Agree in advance on who is allowed to say "pull it," and make sure the founder will listen.
Draft an apology framework now, while nothing is wrong: what we did, why it was wrong, what we are changing. Under pressure, a framework keeps you from writing the first statement Stewart had to take back.
Decide who speaks, on which channel, and how fast. Silence for a few hours is fine. A defensive statement in the first hour is not.
Our crisis communications and reputation work for founders and brands is outlined on our services page.
The takeaway
A gaffe is about a moment. A brand crisis is about what you were selling in that moment.
Stewart's second statement was the right one. The lesson for founders is to make sure your first statement is the right one, by building the habits and the review steps that catch the problem before it is public.
Have you ever watched a brand need two apologies to land one? That is usually a sign the review step was missing, not the talent.
If you want a second set of eyes on your next launch, campaign or announcement, book a Coffee Chat with Amore.
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