Quick Facts

• Béis founder Shay Mitchell used nearly eight years of TikTok complaints to overhaul the Weekender bag, its flagship product in a $250 million business.
• Ryanair built more than 2.7 million TikTok followers and 58.4 million likes by joking openly about its own service failures.
• Domino’s saw a 14.3% sales increase after launching ads featuring real customer criticism of its pizza recipes.

Most brands bury bad reviews. A growing number are putting them in the ads.

The strategy, sometimes called self-roasting, involves brands publicly acknowledging complaints, mocking their own shortcomings, and using that honesty to earn consumer trust. The approach is gaining traction on TikTok and beyond, with results that go beyond engagement metrics.

Béis Rebuilds Its Best-Seller Around the Hate

Shay Mitchell, the actress who founded Béis Travel in October 2018, spent years reading every negative comment about the brand’s Weekender bag. Shoppers complained about shoulder-shredding straps, a wire frame that cut into packing space, inaccessible bottom compartments, and flimsy zippers.

Mitchell didn’t ignore the feedback. She built a redesign around it.

The updated Weekender includes frame-free openings, reinforced padded straps, internal rollback access to the bottom compartment, and locking zippers. Mitchell announced the relaunch with a TikTok video in which her team made her read the worst comments aloud. Her response to one complaint that the bag would “rip your shoulders to shreds”: “Absolutely.”

“We have that open line of communication with our customers, and their feedback really does have an impact on what we think about putting out in the future,” Mitchell said.

The Weekender has sold more than 2 million units since launch. Béis reports $250 million in revenue and average annual growth of 70%.

The brand ran a separate activation called the BÉIS Wash, a car wash-style customer experience built around complaints that a new light-colored luggage line showed dirt. Mitchell’s public response: “Does Nike feel this way when people get their Air Force Ones dirty?” Then she built an event where the brand cleaned customers’ bags for free.

Ryanair Made Complaints Its Content Strategy

Ryanair faced a harder challenge. Budget airlines carry years of built-up consumer frustration over cramped seats, baggage fees, and chaotic boarding. The airline chose to lean into all of it.

Using TikTok-native tools including the plane face filter and green screen effects, Ryanair produced videos joking about charging passengers for breathing and offering window seats with no view. The content mocked the brand’s own reputation without apology.

The result: more than 2.7 million TikTok followers, 58.4 million likes, and a reported 17% engagement rate.

“The brand voice has actually been remarkably consistent over the last 35-plus years,” Ryanair’s head of marketing said. “We’ve always been straight to the point, very direct, very honest about who we are. Kind of cheeky, charming, and not afraid to be self-deprecating.”

The executive added: “Does that make us everyone’s cup of tea? Maybe not. But it’s authentic and that’s something a lot of brands can’t say.”

Domino’s Set the Precedent

The strategy has historical roots. Domino’s ran a campaign years before TikTok existed that featured real customers criticizing its pizza recipes and employees admitting the product needed work. The brand paired the ads with a money-back guarantee.

“What consumers were looking for was honesty and transparency because nobody was giving it to them at that point,” said Domino’s CMO Russell Weiner.

Sales rose 14.3% the following quarter, one of the largest short-term lifts recorded by a major restaurant chain from a single campaign.

What Operators Should Take Away

The brands executing this strategy share a common approach: they identify real, recurring complaints before competitors do, respond publicly, and tie the acknowledgment to a product or experience change. The self-deprecation is not the strategy. The product improvement is.

BrewDog applied a version of the same playbook in 2025, running billboard and social ads featuring fake tabloid headlines about the company’s scandal history. The campaign helped the brand rebuild credibility after a difficult period.

For ecommerce operators, the signal is clear. Negative reviews on TikTok, Amazon, or a brand’s own site are product research. Brands that treat public complaints as data, and then close the loop with customers, are turning a cost center into a marketing asset.

Read more: Why Some Brands Are Roasting Themselves