New research offers businesses a playbook for surviving social media firestorms
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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 26-Feb-2026 11:11 ET (26-Feb-2026 16:11 GMT/UTC)
Sexist. Dystopian.
This was how critics labeled a 30-second Peloton holiday ad in 2019 that featured a man giving a woman an exercise bike as a gift. Backlash was so severe that Peloton’s stock fell by about 9%, after social media erupted over perceived outdated gender roles and body image standards.
A new academic study suggests that global IT strategies are often adapted at local level - and that understanding why requires paying close attention to culture, not just systems and structures.