Think of your Brand as one of the other contestants on American Idol and all your competitors, or just the one who matters as Sanjaya. You are watching the worst possible scenario for a marketer who engages with consumers. No Simon Cowl to protect you. INCREDIBLE!

Don’t think it could happen? Maybe not at the scale of the Amercian Idol phenomenon, but big enough to hurt your marketing ROI and seriously damage your Brand.

What’s a marketer to do now that the consumer has been let into the Brand Tool Box and they are mis-behaving badly?

Your brilliant multi-channel and virally driven marketing campaign has just been co-opted by millions of consumers and every media channel is covering it.

First instinct: pull everything. WRONG. You can’t pull “everything,” it’s not possible. Instead reach out to your consumer brand advocates, the customers who always open your emails, are registered and buy on your site and rank highest in your database. Don’t ask them to rally around the Brand, but rather ask them how they would rally around the Brand. The difference is subtle but critical. Empower them to help you and they will. So make it easy for them to be part of your counterattack.

Next there is the scorched earth policy, momentarily rewarding, “the smell of napalm in the morning,” but none too effective. Instead, kill your detractors with kindness; product samples, promotional offers, chances to win the trip of their dreams. Never make it conditional on good behavior, in fact go out of your way to make it unconditional. Then let human nature take over; simple guilt will stop the majority and public opinion will judge the rest rendering them impotent.

Finally embrace your inner Sanjaya. Prepare for next time and figure out how you can be the Sanjaya in your competitors’ race to stardom. All’s fair in love, war and marketing.