Remember the 2017 Pepsi "Live for Now" campaign with Kendall Jenner? The model joined a protest march and handed a police officer a can of soda. Suddenly, the tension evaporated. The crowd cheered. World peace had been achieved by a soft drink.

The backlash was instant. It was not just anger. It was something stickier. Internet users called it a "giant cringe festival". Mentions of Pepsi on social media spiked by over 21,000%. People could not stop talking about it.

As a marketer, you look at that disaster and you shudder. You assume that negative word-of-mouth destroys brands. But new research suggests something more complex is happening in the consumer’s brain.

Cringe is not just an emotion. It is a social signal. Your customers are using your failures to boost their own egos.