Influencer Marketing, PR, and ESG Principles: When Brand Trips Backfire

In 2023, a group of underrepresented yet high-profile American social media influencers accepted an expenses-paid trip to a fast-fashion brand’s innovation center in China.

At that time, the brand had a potential multibillion-dollar IPO on the horizon. It also had a questionable environmental and labor record, likely raising concerns among socially conscious investors who consider companies' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices when making investment decisions.

From a PR perspective, an influencer marketing campaign seemed like a possible strategy to soften those concerns and reshape the public narrative through influencers' lifestyle social media content, ahead of the looming IPO.

Influencer Marketing, ESG Risk, and Brand Reputation

But the campaign did not go as planned.

As influencers began posting content from the trip, followers' backlash was swift, publicly zeroing in on a gap between what followers believed their favorite fashion and lifestyle social media influencers stood for and the fashion brand’s perceived sustainability practices.

Instead of bolstering the brand, the campaign backlash shifted attention to the influencers, raising questions about complicity, due diligence, fairness, and accountability in influencer-brand partnerships.

Meanwhile, the brand's IPO went on hold in the U.S. and the U.K., where it has stayed as of early 2026.

Backlash and Influencer Accountability

This story and its embedded tension sit at the heart of my new peer-reviewed teaching case, published with Sage. The case explores how PR, influencer marketing, and sustainability principles intersect in an era when social media audiences are informed, vocal, and motivated to speak up based on their values (even if those values don't necessarily match their buying habits).

The case invites students and practitioners to grapple with several key questions:

• How should PR leaders and brands design influencer campaigns when sustainability-related risks are present or contested?

• What responsibilities do influencers have when promoting brands with complex or opaque ethical footprints?

• How does “follower power” and real-time social media scrutiny reshape accountability for both brands and influencers?

The teaching case is designed for business, PR, leadership, and sustainability courses that want to move beyond abstract discussions of ESG into the messy, real-world dynamics of campaigns, content, and consequences. It provides a platform for students to debate stakeholder responsibilities, evaluate PR and influencer strategies, and consider what ethical, transparent, and credible communication might look like in similar situations.

If you’re interested in using the case in your classroom or professional development work, reach out to Sage! In the meantime, you can review the case abstract here.

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