Why brand apologies need a reset in 2026

Apologies have become one of the hardest things for brands to get right. Not because brands don’t apologise, but because most still do it like a formality, not a responsibility.

Over the last few years, crisis responses have followed a familiar pattern: a misstep goes viral, a statement is issued, and the brand hopes the cycle moves on. Sometimes it does. Often, the apology itself becomes part of the backlash.

Consider The Whole Truth, a food brand built on full ingredient transparency. When it admitted that one of its best-selling bars used candied cranberries, the disclosure triggered a storm online. In a public apology, the brand explained that dried cranberries are usually sweetened at source. “The truth is that dried cranberries have added sugar. They do. So we won’t use them anymore,” the brand wrote, admitting it had failed to investigate the candying process. “We should’ve identified this earlier… for that, we’re sorry.”

The brand pulled its second-highest-selling bar from shelves, experimented with freeze-dried cranberries, and promised “no more candied cranberries. Ever.” The response was backed by visible action. It showed how owning up early can help stabilise trust, even when the mistake cuts close to a brand’s core promise.

Now contrast that with IndiGo’s operational breakdown, where the airline, handling a large share of India’s domestic air traffic, cancelled thousands of flights after gaps in implementing new crew duty rules. Airports across the country saw passengers stuck for hours, while social media turned into a live record of disrupted plans, filled with missed weddings, delayed funerals, and exhausted families sleeping on terminal floors.

The situation was more than just an operational issue. It showed how quickly things fall apart when responsibility isn’t handled well. IndiGo later published a full-page apology in a national newspaper with the headline “We Are Sorry.” However, the apology did not land well. After days of confusion and distress, many felt the gesture was too little, too late, and did not reflect the scale of disruption and emotional stress faced by passengers.

These two examples show both ends of the apology spectrum. One where acknowledgement is paired with action. Another where a high-visibility apology struggles to land because it arrives after trust has already frayed.

As brands navigate the challenge of 2026, it is no longer about speed or visibility. It is about credibility. How do brands apologise in a way that feels human, accountable, and proportionate to the harm caused? And what needs to change inside organisations for apologies to be more than carefully worded statements?

When faster responses miss the point

Brands are responding faster than ever, but speed alone hasn’t made apologies more human. In today’s always-on environment, silence is no longer an option. A delayed response is quickly read as indifference, forcing brands to acknowledge controversies within hours, not days.

“Brands today are faster but largely because the internet has removed their ability to hide, not because all organisations have suddenly become more emotionally intelligent,” says Vishaal Shah, Founder, Moe’s Art. 

Silence, once a strategic option, no longer exists. Screenshots travel faster than internal approvals, and narratives take shape before the first crisis call ends.

The Prada-Kolhapuri episode, Shah says, highlighted this tension clearly. A luxury house referencing a centuries-old Indian craft isn't just a design story; it’s a cultural one. The public reaction wasn’t about sandals alone, but about authorship, recognition and power. 

“The delayed acknowledgement made it feel reactive rather than reflective; more like a response to pressure than an expression of understanding. So yes, brands have learned to show up faster. But many still show up with process-driven statements, when moments like these demand presence, clarity and humility,” adds Shah.

That pressure has made brands show up earlier, yet faster responses haven’t fixed the core problem. 

“Most apologies are still shaped by the same ecosystem of legal, compliance, brand and reputation teams, whose mandate is to minimise exposure, not necessarily to sound human,” Shah adds. 

Statements are issued quickly, but often lack empathy, clarity, or ownership, signalling that the brand is managing risk, not rebuilding trust.

Poonam Mahajan, Director at AMBC and author of The Vital Role of PR in Crisis, echoes this from an Indian market lens. “Brands in India have definitely become faster and more visible with apologies compared to a few years ago,” she says. “However, what hasn’t evolved enough is intent. Many Indian brands still treat apologies as a risk-management exercise rather than a trust-building moment.”

Both point to the same pattern: speed without empathy. Statements arrive quickly, but feel lawyer-approved, cautious, and vague, leaving audiences unconvinced.

When apologies start sounding like PR

If there’s one litmus test experts agree on, it’s this: does the apology sound like something a human would say?

“A simple way to spot a performative apology is to ask one question: does this sound like something a human would say or something a company felt safe approving?” Shah explains. Once apologies start explaining intent instead of acknowledging impact, they stop working.

The American Eagle-Sydney Sweeney campaign is a case in point. While the brand leaned into clarifying creative intent, audiences interpreted the work through a cultural lens shaped by representation and politics. “The moment an apology starts sounding like a justification note, it stops feeling human and starts reading like reputation management,” Shah notes.

Mahajan adds that corporate phrasing is often the biggest giveaway. “In the Indian context, apologies start sounding like PR when brands hide behind phrases like ‘unintentional oversight’ or ‘misinterpretation’,” she says. In contrast, when founders or CXOs step up and speak plainly, the tone shifts dramatically. “The moment an apology protects the brand more than the people affected, it stops feeling human.”

For Dilip Cherian, Founder of Perfect Relations, this legal-first instinct is where brands do themselves the most damage. “Legally safe usually also means that, unless really worked on, it will sound both cold as well as non-confrontational,” he says. While that approach may help in court, “it is not likely to be standing the test of public acceptance. And that is where reputation begins to be hurt.”

The cost of getting it wrong

One of the biggest myths brands still operate under is that they control the narrative. That assumption, experts say, is now the fastest way to lose it.

“The biggest mistake brands make today is assuming they still control the narrative,” says Shah. In a real-time media environment, apologies don’t enter neutral territory; they enter conversations where expectations are already set.

He points to Air India’s plagiarised apology following the Boeing 787 Dreamliner crash as a cautionary example. What should have been a moment of seriousness and accountability became another point of criticism, proof that when the apology itself becomes the story, the brand isn’t managing the crisis, it’s prolonging it.

Mahajan underlines how quickly sentiment can turn. “Within a few hours of an incident, conversations shift from questioning the incident to questioning the brand’s values and intent,” she says. Delayed or defensive apologies are read not as remorse, but as pressure-driven damage control.

Cherian highlights that apologies are often treated as an endpoint when they should be a beginning. “A well-crafted apology actually can become the point from which reputation rebuilding can begin,” he says. Crises, he adds, are battlegrounds, and emerging stronger requires intent, speed, and the right expertise at the table.

Will 2026 be the reset?

If apologies do improve in 2026, experts agree it won’t be because brands suddenly discovered better words.

Shah says, “It will be because the cost of getting it wrong has become too high.” Audiences today want evidence, what’s being fixed, who is accountable, and how it won’t happen again.

Mahajan believes a reset is possible, but only with structural change. “2026 could be a reset point, but only if Indian organisations stop seeing apologies as a legal liability and start seeing them as a leadership responsibility,” she says. Crisis simulations, empowered communication teams, and leaders trained to respond with empathy, not just caution, will separate credible apologies from cosmetic ones.

Cherian, however, remains cautiously sceptical. With crises escalating faster and valuations dropping sharply, he worries that brands may double down on short-sighted, legal-first responses instead of rebuilding systems to respond better next time. “My only anxiety is that you actually have more people responding in a purely legal and purely short-sighted way,” he says.

If 2026 has to be the year brands finally apologise like they mean it, apologies will have to stop being treated as PR outputs and start being treated as leadership acts. That means accepting that speed alone isn’t enough. Neither is visibility. A credible apology will require brands to acknowledge harm without defensiveness, take responsibility without hedging, and back words with decisions that carry real cost, pulling campaigns, fixing systems, compensating customers, or changing policies before outrage forces their hand.

It will also demand structural shifts inside organisations. Crisis response can no longer sit solely with legal or compliance teams. Marketing, communications, operations, and leadership need to be aligned in advance, with clear escalation paths and the authority to act quickly and humanely. 

Most importantly, brands will need to let go of the illusion of control. In a world where narratives form in real time, apologies are no longer about managing perception; they’re about earning credibility back, piece by piece.

Because 2026 might be the year where audiences won’t be asking whether a brand apologised. They’ll be asking whether it understood what it did wrong, and whether it did anything meaningful to make it right.