Bait-and-Switch DM to Viral Backlash: How a Sports Brand Blew a Simple Takedown
How would you feel getting hyped for a dream collab, only to get a legal threat?
Approximately 2 weeks ago, a popular sports gear company sent a DM to a TikTok creator who had recently posted a video featuring the company’s catalog, showing a new line they’re bringing out in the spring. “We’re interested in partnering with your account,” the DM said, “Can you let us know the best email address to reach out to?”
Brand partnerships are exciting for TikTok creators for many reasons. And they’re not easy to get. It’s especially exciting when one of your favorite brands you’ve been buying from your whole life wants to partner with you. “IS THIS REAL LIFE?” the creator responded, indicating her excitement. She sent over her email address, expecting details on the partnership.
Instead, she got a takedown request.
We want to make you aware that <company> is the author and publisher of its sales catalogues, which contain copyright protected photographs, images, and product descriptions, as well as the copyright owner of our product images online. We own exclusive rights under United States and Canadian copyright law in and to the images and descriptions contained in our sales catalogues and our product photos. Without authorization, your TikTok account reproduces and displays exact copies of <company’s> sales catalogue materials - for example, <products>. This is copyright infringement. We’d like to avoid having our legal team have to get involved, but that will require you to remove these posts and immediately stop posting reproductions of our catalogue or our photographs.
The creator posted the DM and email exchange on TikTok, explaining why she removed the posts. Naturally, that video went viral. The brand sent her another email:
We saw your video and want to apologize. We should have approached our outreach differently.
Our intent was to protect our intellectual property, but we recognize that our DM was misleading and caused frustration. When unreleased or copyrighted assets are shared, it’s important for us to act quickly - but we should have handled the situation better.
We value the <sport> creator community and appreciate the role you play in it. If you’re interested, we’d love to have you test our new <product> when it launches this spring. Again, we apologize, and we hope to have the opportunity to collaborate in the future.
Again, the video went viral. The brand turned off tagging on their posts and started deleting negative comments calling them out.
Today, two weeks later, the brand posted a text response video:
Last week, we made a big mistake.
We contacted <TikTok creator> saying we were interested in a partnership, when our real intent was to ask for a post featuring unreleased product information to be taken down.
In our rush to address the post, we made a bad call and misled a genuine supporter. That was wrong and we apologized, but we recognize it wasn’t enough.
To <creator>: How we handled this wasn’t fair to you. You’re a passionate hockey player and were a loyal supporter of our brand. We damaged your trust, and we’re truly sorry for that.
To the <sport> community: We care deeply about this community and the creators who help grow the game. We got this wrong, and we’re committed to doing better.
We are real people who love <sport>, and we made a real mistake.
This is an excellent example of how NOT to handle an issue
A company handling things badly is a great opportunity to practice your skills in doing it better. It’s more helpful to look at mistakes than successes because how one person achieved something teaches you how one person achieved something in their unique set of circumstances. You can’t copy/paste their approach onto your life because every issue is unique, and the differing factors involved mean that an effective approach for one individual or company will almost never directly transfer to another. Looking at mistakes helps you learn to strategize by identifying what you’d do differently and considering the circumstances without bias from knowing what works. That’s why I like to look at mistakes.
And this was not a single mistake.
What went wrong
Like most crises and issues, this was a sequence of events and choices, each presenting a chance to de-escalate or escalate the situation. This brand consistently chose the latter.
The takedown request itself… that might be valid. I’m not going to deep dive copyright law here. But the brand’s bait-and-switch approach was extremely flawed, and there was almost no way it could succeed with its reputation intact. I have difficulty envisioning a PR team making this decision, so I suspect one wasn’t involved. Telling a loyal supporter of your brand that you want to partner with them to obtain their email address for a takedown notice is insane. That’s the only appropriate word. Talk about weaponizing the creator’s loyalty and excitement against her.
The takedown email was excessively aggressive and intimidating. The mention of the company’s legal team is a thinly veiled threat. The private email apology wasn’t much better. Obviously, the brand wanted to resolve the issue in private after the situation was made public, but it’s too late to make only a private apology when your brand is publicly under fire for shitty actions on TikTok. Saying nothing publicly while reacting privately, deleting negative comments, and disabling tagging on the company’s social media makes it clear that the private apology was tactical rather than genuine. The offer to test the new product and the vague “we hope to have the opportunity to collaborate in the future” read as a token gesture, with no acknowledgment of the breach of trust or lack of accountability. Test it, but without a collaboration now? They couldn’t possibly have expected her to review these products for free, could they?
TL;DR: The brand tried to privately resolve the situation without taking public accountability.
A genuine public apology at this stage, alongside a genuine brand partnership offer, could have begun to repair the reputational damage.
The actual public apology came too late
Two weeks after the initial incident is like two years in social media time. Responding late puts your response entirely in the ‘reactive’ category, made under pressure from criticism rather than a genuine desire to issue it. Doing this lets the public control the narrative and makes your apology feel forced and insincere.
This apology was also badly phrased. I like the part where the company clearly states that they did do the bait-and-switch on this creator and that this was wrong. I don’t like the shifting of blame to having to ‘rush’ and that resulting in a ‘bad call’. Lying and then hinting at legal action is more than a bad call. And a copyright violation involving a creator posting your catalog and effectively advertising your new products for you, for free, is not enough of an emergency to justify rushing to the point where you can’t develop and implement a respectful approach. This creator’s video wasn’t hurting the brand.
I don’t like the lack of empathy regarding the creator’s feelings about being offered a fake partnership. I don’t like the empty promise of “we’re committed to doing better”. How? How are you committed to doing better? Policy changes? Training? What are you doing to make sure that you do better, and what does doing better look like to you?
Written apologies are just words. The right words can go a long way toward rebuilding trust and reputation, but they must be accompanied by actions that align with those words and promises and can be kept. The brand’s apology offers no concrete measure for customers to assess whether its future actions align with its promises.
There’s also a substantial power imbalance in this situation, with a large company on one side and a small creator on the other. The deceptive tactics and legal threats could be considered an abuse of this power. Brand reputation is built on trust, and when a brand is perceived as abusing its power, it will attract public attention in ways it doesn’t want. Other loyal brand users will likely see themselves in the creator and feel alienated by the brand, and may not want to support a company they perceive as bullying its consumers.
Considerations for your brand
Everything this brand got wrong is avoidable. The negative impact of each choice made in this process could have been predicted before any action was taken. Bad for them, but good for you, because you won’t make the same errors for your own brand.
Ask nicely first
What this brand should have done is sent a direct message to the creator explaining that the product images she’d posted were copyrighted or unreleased/not ready to be shown in public yet, and asked her respectfully to take them down, perhaps offering to send her some free gear as a show of support:
Hey, we love your passion for our brand! We noticed you posted some unreleased product info. That stuff is still under wraps, so we’d be grateful if you could take it down. As a thank you for your support and understanding, we’d love to send you some gear.
A friendly message requesting removal alone (without the free stuff) would also likely have resulted in a positive outcome. The creator indicated that she’d have taken the posts down if asked in this manner.
If someone posts a copyrighted image of yours, try just asking them to remove it. No threatening legal action or other intimidating language. You can escalate if they refuse, but there’s no need to start aggressive. Most will be happy to act on a respectful request.
And definitely do not tell them you want to partner with them to start a conversation unless your goal is to initiate a real brand partnership.
Respond quickly
If for some reason your brand goes viral for a negative reason, respond quickly. Within an hour, if possible. If you don’t have all the details, a holding statement indicating that you’re aware of the situation, are investigating, take it seriously, and will provide a detailed response soon is better than nothing. It shows you care and are doing something about it. Once you’re ready to release the full response, make sure it doesn’t just name your actions but also shows empathy and acknowledges the impact of those actions on everyone affected. Make your next steps concrete and clear, so you have promised something that, over time, your customers or clients can see you’re acting in alignment with. Give them a reason to trust you again.
Don’t make a big issue out of a small problem
The copyright infringement was a minor and easily solvable problem. The brand’s decision to use deception and intimidation, followed by a delayed acknowledgement, built their reputational crisis brick-by-brick, as they say on TikTok. Each step was a conscious choice that demonstrated disrespect for the creator and the wider community.
This brand appears to have misidentified their crisis after the mistake that caused it, repeatedly referring to the copyright issue and protecting their IP in subsequent messaging when their audience doesn’t care about the copyright. Their audience cares about how the brand treated the creator. The crisis here is poor management decisions leading to deceptive practices, and it’s that that needs to be addressed by the brand moving forward if they want to repair their reputation. They could easily have had that content taken down with a private, respectful request. They weren’t being actively harmed by the creator’s content, and it wasn’t an emergency situation that necessitated strong action. The existence of that content was a minor problem that the brand created a substantial issue out of.
Always step back and look at the bigger picture when you feel something is an emergency that justifies a rushed, potentially catastrophic (reputation-wise) response.
There are very few true emergencies in business. Take your time to get it right.
This brand lost control of the narrative and reinforced the negative stereotype that large corporations are manipulative. Rebuilding trust will be challenging and require sustained, verifiable commitment to transparency and authenticity. The community will be watching. And this was so, so avoidable…