You often here stories about how large companies react badly to negative press. Oftentimes, it’s a small story that, because of a botched response, becomes national news.

However, while crisis communications is a full-time job, not every ‘chink in the armor’ needs to call for a full out assault.

Take, for example, Columbia University. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Columbia Business School as a client for the past year so it’s especially gratifying to see the people I know show their personalities.

Seems the newspapers ran a story that Columbia’s dining halls were spending $5,000 per week on Nutella. Yes, just Nutella. And, in these times of sequestration and budget cuts, spending $5,000 per week on a chocolate spread, no matter how delicious, could easily be seen as wasteful, financial mismanagement.

However, when the story came to light, Columbia simply countered with the actual facts and even had a little fun in their response. It is, after all, Nutella that we’re talking about. No need to overreact. “Nutella-gate”, as they dubbed it, could have been blown way out of proportion. Instead, handling it with aplomb, instead of an atomic bomb, was the right call.