Do it like JetBlue

In case you missed it, JetBlue suffered a major brand crisis this past week after an ice storm hit the Eastern United States and the airline failed to properly respond due to a communications meltdown. Nine planes sat on New York’s JFK tarmac for six hours or more. Nearly a quarter of its flights had to be canceled even days later and service to 11 cities was shutdown entirely.

While other airlines cancelled flights ahead of the storm, JetBlue rolled the dice and came up more than short. An all-out consumer revolt, a media frenzy and a stock collapse has since ensued.

JetBlue is a strong brand founded by a charismatic leader (David Neeleman) and is focused on low prices. Once flying high, the JetBlue brand has come crashing down to earth. The JetBlue brand, which was used to being cited as a favorite among passengers and stock analysts alike, has suddenly fallen from grace.

So what should JetBlue do? Exactly what they are doing. In my opinion, their response will become a textbook case for how to solve a PR problem. Much like the Tylenol case in the 80’s. "We'll do it like JetBlue" is bound to be the rallying cry of future brand leaders.

Here are the steps to follow so you can do it like JetBlue if your brand faces a similar PR crisis:

1: Admit your mistake and apologize publicly immediately.

Brands need a strong spokesperson to pull this off. Sending out a press release will just not do. You need a well-known leader the public trusts to make the media rounds and eat crow.

David's first move was to talk with The New York Times. The front-page story that ran quotes David as being “humiliated and mortified” by the breakdown in airline operations. Brilliant! Since then he has been speaking to almost every media outlet in town. Brilliant! The public likes nothing better that seeing and hearing an apology straight from the horse’s mouth.

2: Do something.

After a few days of hearing how sorry David is, the apology can wear thin and feel more like he is trying to save his stock options than the brand’s credibility with consumers. So after saying sorry, the brand needs to do something big.

Today JetBlue has done just this by rolling out a customer bill of rights that promises to compensate customers for delays. Brilliant!

3: Don’t advertise at all.

The worst mistake companies make is trying to use advertising to save the company’s reputation. After an E.Coli outbreak, Taco Bell ran full-page ads saying “Taco Bell food is safe to eat.” Yeah right, thinks the public.

Advertising is great for getting a message out to the masses quickly. But advertising lacks credibility. So it is not an effective way to educate or reassure consumers of anything.

The best thing to do is halt all advertising until the crisis cools down. Any ads that run during the crisis will just remind people of your problems without changing any minds. Even if the ads simply say your are sorry, they will unlikely ring true.

4: Give it time.

The best medicine for any PR crisis is time. Over time people are more than likely to forget about whatever has happened. Over time, if you don’t mess up again, people are willing to forgive. Over time what is left is your brand message in the mind. If you have a strong brand, you will survive just fine. Tylenol did and so will JetBlue.

Build a strong brand in the mind and if the unthinkable happens just follow these four steps so you can do it like JetBlue and survive too.

Comments

[vaspers the grate]

Wonderful advice.

I think also the CEO must do something self-sacrificing, atoning for the sins of the company.

Even a weird publicity stunt, say fasting on a pillar and communicating via carrier pigeon, for a solid week.

[Rob]

I don't think anyone would argue that there isn't an airline getting it 100% correct. Even Southwest isn't perfect. And I agree that JetBlue has had a very heavy PR response, better than most in terms of steps taken. But what it appears you're saying is that because of a captive audience, such as your Atlanta/Delta situation, why should the airlines bother with crisis response PR in the first place? Even if you hate Delta, what are your options?

The airline business could benefit by taking a page out of the wireless telecom marketing playbook (minus the cheesy advertising). Because customers have a choice based on service, reliability, price, etc., the companies must actually walk the talk or face losing customers.

Of course, is there a chance of that happening? Probably not. But it would certainly be refreshing to see an airline speak with customers over the long term like they're afraid of losing them.

[Laura Ries]

That's fine Rob and Yvonnne. But what other airline are you going to fly? Unless you buy your own airplane or can afford factional owership, Delta, American, United, USAir, AirTran all have even worst problems that JetBlue.

I have had so many bad experiences with Delta but what am I going to do? I live in Atlanta and Delta is the only choice to many destinations.

Marketing is a battle won not just on the strengh of your brand but on the weaknesses of your competition. All the other airline brands have much worst records in terms of customer service and they are just as guilty of leaving passengers for hours on the runways.

Of course, there is Southwest. But they don't compete much in head-to-head combat against JetBlue. At least not yet.

In the airline business the best of the worst will win.

[Yvonne DiVita]

Laura, I agree with Rob. I used to be a die-hard JetBlue fan. If JetBlue didn't fly there, I didn't go there. Now...even though I wasn't on any of the planes during the fiasco - I doubt I will fly JetBlue for a very, very long time.

I don't care what the CEO says. I'm bored and distrustful of him... I don't care how sincere he sounds. The key for me would be the customer service folks... get them on TV and in print. I want to hear what JetBlue did to help them prevent this ever happening again.

As for a customer bill of rights... oh please! That was a JetBlue standard BEFORE this incident...it just wasn't "in writing."

JetBlue did more than stumble, from my point of view. They grabbed their customers as they went down and used us as landing mats. That's not easily forgiven.

[Laura Ries]

The problem is that everytime we write about an example of a company that does a great job with branding, they go and goof it up. Overall, I think JetBlue has done a lot better at responding to this crisis that any other company in a long time. Are they perfect? No. They may have run some ads (I would not have) but the focus of the response has been with heavy PR. I have seen David on EVERY show, when is the last time you saw another CEO do that? Not too often. I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned from the JetBlue case. And we'll see a year from now how the brand does.

Many companies that we have mentioned as brilliant marketers also screwed up. Volvo convertibles the ultimate in unsafety. And now Red Bull comes in Monster sized cans. Go figure.

[Tom Asacker]

But JetBlue DID run ads.

[Rob]

Laura - I am a big fan of yours and agree with most of your positions, but I have to disagree with your assessment of JetBlue's handling of the situation. You listed 4 steps an organization should take in a crisis situation, and I agree with all four. However, in the case of JetBlue, the steps were not performed in a manner that I would consider a 'textbook case' for us to follow.

While it's true that Mr. Neeleman went on TV everywhere and apologized, he didn't take responsibility. He dumped responsibility onto 'us' or 'the airline,' but when Matt Lauer asked him about responsibility, Neeleman's response was "it rests with the CEO, although I wasn't responsible for that portion of the business, I had restless nights...." So in essence, he's saying, 'it's our fault, but not necessarily my fault."

Then when describing what actions will be taken he claimed that all the necessary steps had already been enacted. JetBlue has hired more staff, fully trained them and put full contingency plans into place so that this doesn't ever happen again. And oh yeah, they also created a customer bill of rights. Does anyone believe that was accomplished in four days?

Finally, the customer bill of rights isn't a document showing how JetBlue is going to fix anything. It's a document that agrees to compensate passengers for when this happens again! Neeleman repeated over and over about how they would learn from this experience and never repeat it. Yet their 'solution' is a document that was created to pay passengers for when it does happen.

I agree with you that the correct fundamental steps were taken by JetBlue. Where we disagree is in the execution of those steps.

[Mike]

Dead on. I just had this conversation with some of my team members over lunch today.