The purpose of this article is to identify companies’ responses to scandal spillover stemming from their association with tainted social media influencers. Drawing on the literature on scandal, we show how the relationship between a social media influencer and a given brand is conducive to scandal spillover, triggered by the social media influencer’s deviance or wrongdoing. We conducted an explorative case study of the Operation Varsity Blues Scandal involving social media influencer Oliva Jade Gianulli, whose parents were both accused of bribing officials to have their daughters accepted into prestigious U.S. colleges. We collected secondary data from the internet on how 12 companies linked to Olivia Jade responded to the scandal backlash. Our article identifies four possible responses to scandal spillover resulting from association with a tainted social media influencer: proactive dissociation, reactive dissociation, mimetic dissociation, and the absence of response.

中文翻译：

---

公司对社交媒体影响者引起的丑闻反弹的回应

本文的目的是确定公司对因与受污染的社交媒体影响者的关联而产生的丑闻溢出的反应。借鉴有关丑闻的文献，我们展示了社交媒体影响者与特定品牌之间的关系如何促进丑闻溢出，由社交媒体影响者的越轨或不当行为引发。我们对“Operation Varsity Blues Scandal”进行了探索性案例研究，涉及社交媒体影响者 Oliva Jade Gianulli，她的父母都被指控贿赂官员，让他们的女儿被美国著名大学录取。我们从互联网上收集了关于与 Olivia Jade 有关联的 12 家公司如何应对丑闻反弹的二手数据。