The world would be a much rosier place if everything always went according to plan —  but that's just not realistic. Marketers know this perhaps better than anyone else. From product failures to unanticipated social media backlash to misinterpreted messaging, there's always something that can go wrong. 

But crises don't arise so much from a problems itself as they do from the way the situation is handled. Take, for example, the following four brands that turned a bad situation into an opportunity for success.

1. Red Cross 

In the world of social media management, many marketers are managing multiple accounts at once via services like Hootsuite. Even with these helpful tools, posting the right content to the right account takes some precision, and mistakes are easy to make. One such mistake caused a bit of a stir on Twitter in 2011 for the Red Cross when its social media coordinator posted a personal tweet on the organization’s handle: “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer… when we drink we do it right #gettingslizzerd.”

Obviously, the tweet immediately began to garner the wrong kind of attention for the humanitarian organization. Rather than just delete the tweet and pretend like nothing happened, the Red Cross admitted the mistake and made a joke of it immediately, tweeting, “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.” The employee who made the mistake also fessed up on her own Twitter. 

Many Twitter followers were so impressed with the Red Cross’ honesty in handling the situation that donations began to roll in and tweets were spread with links to donate. The #gettingslizzered hashtag was turned around as way to gather donations and not an embarrassment to the brand.

2. JC Penney

Having a product and advertisement compared to one of history’s most-hated figures is never good for business. Last year, JC Penney relaunched its home goods category with a line from designer and architect Michael Graves. 

His teapot design was featured on a billboard that seemed harmless enough, but a Redditor saw something else entirely — a resemblance to Adolf Hitler. The user posted a photo to Reddit next to a photo of the German dictator, and the post didn’t stay contained to the site for long. JC Penney was forced to respond to the discussion when the social media buzz led to a story in The Telegraph. 

The retailer quickly started its social media outreach machine and engaged directly with users mentioning the teapot’s alleged resemblance. While a Hitler teapot probably would never be approved for distribution, the unintentional resemblance and ensuing furor actually made the album more valuable. According to Graves, the teapot sold 1,600 units in just one week following the story. There were even reports of the teapot being sold for $200 on eBay. JC Penney only charged $40. 

3. GM 

Earlier this year, General Motors suffered a blow when it was forced to recall six automobile models because of an ignition switch problem. The result was the biggest recall and safety crisis in history, causing sales of the affected models to drop 14% from March through June. 

What was a critical problem for the brand, however, was turned around on a local level by many dealers. Because of the recall, dealerships had a surge in customers coming through their doors for repairs. The increase in traffic enabled dealers to turn the negative into a positive, treating customers coming in for repairs to the highest level of customer service and building a stronger relationship between the brand and customers. It also presented an opportunity to put customers in new vehicles: Some 6,600 new vehicles were sold to owners of the recalled models. 

4. Los Angeles Clippers

When the owner of a NBA franchise is recorded spouting off a racist rant, it’s not good news for the brand. LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling was recorded doing just that, resulting in a media firestorm.

After the NBA's decision to ban Sterling for life, the Clippers took to social media to engage in damage control. The team's simplistic approach: Posting the statement “We are one” with a Clipper’s logo across the team's digital properties.

The move was a quick, simple, and positive response to the Sterling controversy surrounding, and fans started to rally around the post to show solidarity. It garnered garnered some 16,000 Facebook likes in its first hour, along with 863 retweets and over 600 favorites in its first six minutes on Twitter.