This week, an Australian activewear brand found itself at the centre of a small but highly combustible social media backlash, after a lighthearted gym video was shared online and quickly criticised for crossing a line.
Suave Activewear, a small Australian activewear brand founded by Connor Wright, was pulled into the spotlight after his wife, Chloe Wright, who he had previously referred to as his co-founder, shared a video of a man using a rowing machine at the gym. The video appeared to be making a joke about the man’s rowing technique, rather than attacking him personally.
But that distinction only gets you so far.
Once you film and share a stranger in a gym without their permission, the joke is no longer just yours.
Why this matters from a PR perspective
The backlash was not enormous in the sense of a major corporate crisis. But for a small, founder-led activewear brand, it was big enough. It moved from social media criticism to mainstream coverage, drew in fitness commentary accounts, and forced the brand to issue a public apology.
The reputational danger was not solely about scale. It was that the issue was directly at odds with the brand’s own promise.
Suave Activewear is built around fitness, confidence, and helping people feel good in themselves. So when someone closely associated with the brand shares a video of a stranger working out, even in a lighthearted way, the issue becomes bigger than the post itself.
Gyms are sensitive environments. People are learning. People are self-conscious. People are trying to improve. They may already feel awkward, exposed or uncertain.
So even when the intention is not malicious, the impact can still be uncomfortable.
That is the first PR lesson here: intent explains context. It does not erase impact.
A strong response would have recognised that difference quickly.
How the response made things worse
The problem is that Suave’s response made the issue bigger than it needed to be.
Connor first became the person publicly apologising. He apologised on Chloe’s behalf. Then, after that was criticised, Chloe posted an apology video herself. So now there were two separate apology videos about one incident.
And that changed the shape of the story entirely.
Suddenly, the focus was no longer just on a poorly judged post. It became a story about sequencing, avoidance, accountability, who speaks for the brand, and why this required multiple instalments rather than one clear, coordinated response.
Every additional apology is also an additional piece of content. It creates another moment for people to watch, dissect, share, criticise and re-litigate the original issue.
Sometimes a second apology is necessary, particularly if the first one missed the mark. But in this case, the stronger response would have been one coordinated apology from the beginning.
Chloe should have addressed the specific mistake herself because she was the person who posted the video. Connor could still have appeared or issued a short supporting statement as the founder of the business. But the response needed to be disciplined.
One clear acknowledgement. One proportionate apology. One explanation of what had been learned. One restatement of the brand’s values.
Instead, the issue spread.
What happens when a story migrates
Chloe has since deleted her Instagram account, and Suave’s brand Instagram is still receiving comments on unrelated posts about the incident, including people calling them bullies and posting references to rowing machines.
That is a sign the story has not been contained. It has migrated.
When a reputational issue migrates from the original incident to every unrelated piece of brand content, you are no longer dealing with one bad post. You are dealing with live reputational residue.
The distancing problem
There was another significant issue. Connor appeared to try to distance himself and the brand from Chloe by emphasising that Suave was his business, and that Chloe merely helped out.
That sat awkwardly alongside the fact that she had been publicly associated with the brand and previously described as a co-founder.
It may have been technically true from an ownership perspective. But in PR, technical truth is not always the same as reputational truth. If someone has been publicly associated with a brand and positioned as part of its story, the audience does not suddenly forget that when something goes wrong.
That kind of distancing can look convenient. It can make the response feel less like accountability and more like rearranging the furniture while the room is already on fire.
The line that should never have made it in
This is where the issue became more combustible.
Connor’s apology included a line that should never have made it into a crisis response. He said, “It’s my first time living, it’s her first time living.”
That line may have been intended to sound human and vulnerable. But in an apology, it risks sounding like a request for sympathy.
And you should never try to garner sympathy when you are apologising for a storm of your own making.
The public does not need to be persuaded that you are having a difficult time. They need to be persuaded that you understand why your conduct caused a problem.
Some people online have also claimed that Chloe responded to direct messages by saying she was being bullied.
This is a risky strategy.
When the backlash is the result of your own poor judgment, you have to be extremely cautious about trying to occupy the role of victim. That does not mean online pile-ons are pleasant. They can be disproportionate, ugly and personally distressing.
But in the public-facing response, the first task is accountability. If you move too quickly to your own hurt, before properly acknowledging the person you affected, the audience may see that as deflection.
And once people smell deflection, they start looking for patterns. That is now playing out on Reddit. When an apology does not close the loop, people start building a bigger case file.
Deleting criticism does not make it go away
To make matters worse, criticism appears to be disappearing from the brand’s channels.
But if people believe a brand is trying to scrub away legitimate frustration rather than answer it, the criticism usually does not disappear. It simply moves elsewhere. And often, it returns louder.
The takeaway
The original Suave Activewear video may have been intended as lighthearted humour. But in PR, the question is not only what you intended to communicate. It is what people reasonably heard, saw and felt.
When the response creates more confusion than clarity, the brand has not contained the issue. It has enlarged it.
When the mistake is human, the response should be human too. But it also needs to be disciplined. Not hidden. Not over-lawyered. Not outsourced to someone adjacent to the issue. Not followed by convenient distancing. Not spread across multiple apology videos. And not accompanied by attempts to garner sympathy from the same audience being asked to forgive you.
When a response does not properly close the loop, the audience keeps it open for you.
