Case Study: Southwest Airlines' Corporate Blog and Crisis Communications

I prepared this case study on Southwest Airlines corporate blog for a lecture I'm giving tomorrow to a group of MBA students at Fairleigh Dickinson University. This group has a special interest in Corporate & Organizational  Communications. What other questions should I put to the students?

P.S. I will report back after the class. [Update: See mini interviews with two students.]

Update: see additional questions about the SW blog below.

Case Study for Student Discussion

Southwest Airlines' Nuts About You Blog and its role in crisis communications:

Situation

March 14, 2008: Southwest Airlines, a discount airline that serves almost 100 million customers annually, many of them fanatically devoted, has maintained a spotless safety record since the company was started in 1971.

Southwest was recently charged with violating Federal Aviation Administration regulations regarding airline inspections on 46 Boeing 737s.

The FAA is fining Southwest $10.2 million, the biggest fine ever imposed on any U.S. airline. The airline’s response has been to initiate an internal investigation and put three employees on administrative leave. It also temporarily grounded 44 planes.

Southwest has 30 days to decide if it will challenge the FAA's findings or the penalty.

Response

You are Southwest’s Director of Corporate Communications.

You’ve been responding to dozens of press requests for interviews. The story has been front-page news in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and on the networks. 

You are also responsible for the corporate blog: Nuts About Southwest. The blog, the first one started by an airline, is one of the more popular and active corporate blogs with new postings almost daily. It was started in April 2006 and sold to upper management as “just another communications tool.”

Readers have left thousands of comments on topics relating to SW’s business practices, service and culture. All comments are screened before being posted. Negative comments are allowed.

The blog is staffed by two editors, Paula Berg and Brian Lusk (known as Blog Girl and Blog Boy), and is regarded as a success within the company. Internally it is seen as a virtual focus group, offering instant feedback from customers.

Questions

Questions for Student Role Play as Director of Corporate Communications

What is the role of SW’s corporate blog during this crisis?

Should the blog be breaking news about how SW is handling the crisis?

Or should it lag behind traditional media outreach (press conferences, press releases, etc.)

What do you think of SW's decision to paste into the blog two press releases about the progress of the internal investigation (here with 66 reader comments and here with 69 comments.)?

SW got 167 comments in reaction to the first post about the crisis: We Take Safety Seriously. The entry is signed by Paula Berg, one of their chief bloggers. Do you think this entry was reviewed by SW's lawyers before she posted it?

What do you think about the fact that most of the 167 comments are negative, starting with the first one: "I don't believe you" and signed by "Jack"?

What do you expect to be your biggest headache in terms of overseeing the blog during this crisis?

SW has other established social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube). How should they be used in conjunction with the blog during this crisis?

How does corporate culture play into the success (or lack thereof) of a corporate blog?

GlaxoSmithKline launches official corporate blog for alli weight loss product

A best practice adage about corporate blogging is that there's gotta be an inside evangelist in order for the blog to work. Well GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare has one in the form of VP of Weight Control Steve Burton. Steve is the lead author on GSK's official corporate blog for alli at alliConnect.com. alli, if you haven't seen the TV commercials, is the first OTC (over the counter), FDA-approved weight loss product. 

The alli blog launched quietly about a week ago. (Full disclosure: I'm working with GSK as a paid consultant to help guide the blog authors as they venture into the blogosphere.) I think this is a first for Big Pharma -- a blog that accompanies the launch of a controversial product. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The distinctive clear-plastic alli starter kit hits the shelves today at pharmacies and retailers across the country. The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog is reporting a feeding frenzy (despite the potential side effects - treatment effects, as GSK calls them - if you eat too much fat while you're taking the pill).

 

Infamous Kryptonite, of "blog clueless" fame, has launched its own blog

Take a look at Kryptonite's newly-launched corporate blog, Unbreakable Bonds. It looks pretty good and it's written by the company's renowned PR chief, Donna Tocci.

Remember way back to 2004 when Kryptonite was the poster child of the blogosphere as the victim of a blogstorm? Everyone said Kryptonite was clueless about the buzz in the blogosphere over its faulty bike locks. Turns out the story was more complicated than that.

Read about what really happened.

Remember this graph?

Other useful links

The infamous posting on Engadget (from Sept. 12, 2004)

Why There's No Escaping the Blog (Fortune - Jan. 10, 2005)

Shel Israel on the Kryptonite bike lock fiasco (April 12, 2007)

Kryptonite creates corporate blog in Bike Biz (April 12, 2007)

Sony BMG UK embraces Vox as a blogging platform for would-be artists to submit their music

Forget those demo CDs. Wanna submit your album for review by Sony BMG Music Entertainment UK's Columbia or RCA record labels? Set up a blog on Sony's new Vox blogging platform and attach your music and video files.

As I predicted in The Corporate Blogging Book, companies will adopt more nuanced blogging platforms as they get more comfortable with blogs as a public-facing communications strategy.

With Vox, privacy controls let you determine who sees what. Typically, this is so you can hide from your mother or your boss what you did/said at last night's party. But obviously, the feature has other uses as well.

Vox (from Six Apart, makers of the well-known TypePad) began as a personal publishing platform. This is the first instance I know of where a corporation has adopted it to build a community and acquire new customers (er, talent).

A bunch of Sony execs have Vox blogs, including Ged Doherty, CEO of Sony BMG UK and Mike (last name?) who runs Columbia Records UK.

And according to The Register UK (a tech news site), Sony BMG UK "has made it obligatory for all senior staff at both Columbia Records and RCA Records to start blogging actively." (Apparently this is from an official Sony news release; will link to it if I find it.)

Useful Links

You can set up your Vox blog at Columbiademos.co.uk or RCAdemos.co.uk.

Vox Rocks (from Vox team blog)

Listen up JetBlue: if you've got a corporate blog, use it... or lose it!

JetBlue CEO David Neeleman launched a blog in September 2006. He calls it a FlightLog.

But... OOPS. He hasn't posted a new entry since Feb. 1st, despite the uproar from angry passengers over the dozens of flights cancelled because of last week's winter storm.

A couple of thoughts: I looked more closely at Neeleman's FlightLog and realized that technically it really isn't a "blog" I.e. you can't link to individual entries, you can't leave a comment, and trackbacks aren't enabled for other bloggers who might want to link to Neeleman's postings.

There's also no RSS feed.

That's a problem and a puzzling one. Why suggest this is a blog - an interactive, easily discoverable (via RSS) Web page - when it isn't?

The bigger problem, of course, is the lapse in posting. One of the biggest faux pas for a CEO blogger is silence during a crisis. Let me say that more charitably, the biggest challenge for a CEO blogger is what to say in a crisis. But ya gotta say something.
 

Meanwhile, mainstream media is eating up JetBlue's predicament with a stream of stories.

Ouch

C'mon guys. This isn't that hard to do. Why ignore a channel that you've got set up (although, as noted above, not set up properly) whereby you can communicate directly with customers?

Update

OK, JetBlue's corporate comms team appears to be struggling to get this right. They've created and posted to the corporate site a YouTube video interview with CEO Neeleman talking about a Customer Bill of Rights. But they still don't quite get how this works. Hey guys, you need to embed the video into his "blog."

[Via Cathy Taylor on AdFreak]

Edelman releases two new studies along with highlights of a third - download them here

Edelman recently released two new studies:

1. 3rd Annual New Frontiers in Employee Communcations (download the PDF here)

and

2. A Corporate Guide to the Blogosphere (links to Edelman Europe CEO David Bain's blog entry; download the PDF here)

They also 3. announced preliminary results of the 2007 Edelman Trust Barometer (download PDF of 2006 Trust Barometer here)

Great stats and anecdotes to chew over, including this blockbuster:

"Nearly one-third of companies are blogging [note: is this internal or external blogging?]; one-third are podcasting."

Also, "Business is more trusted than media and government in every region of the globe."

I haven't had a chance to read any of these thoroughly but want to get the links up. Sounds like the corporate blogging stat is based on a fairly small sample size (senior corporate comms execs at 75 Fortune 500 companies).

IBM's blogger-in-chief Christopher Barger on the 4 times he's had to "drop the hammer" on IBM bloggers

Here's an interesting nugget from SNCR's Inaugural Research Symposium in Boston today. It's a great look inside a Fortune 500 and how they're managing employee blogging.

Four reprimands to IBM bloggers in 18 months

IBM's Christopher Barger, known as Blogger-in-Chief, just told the audience he's only had to "drop the hammer" four times on IBM bloggers since Big Blue launched their blogging initiative 18 months ago.

Barger is on the New Media Communications Team at IBM, which is part of the Strategic Communications group (publishes the annual report, etc.). Formerly a speechwriter for IBM, he moved to his current position after his managers discovered an external personal blog he'd been writing for a year. Rather than disciplining him, they said "Hey, we gotta deal with this stuff and you're the guy to do it."

Three of the times he had to call IBM bloggers on the carpet were for internal blogs; once it was for an external blog posting by a developer.

One of the internal blogs was religiously-themed, Barger said, but "tasteful." However, publicly discussing religion is heavily discouraged by HR.

Another of the internal blogs was "slagging on [the blogger's] manager," Christopher said. The manager's name wasn't included but there were "very specific details."

The outside blog incident was an inadvertent posting by a developer. He posted something about a product he was working on that IBM was contractually forbidden from revealing. Christoper contacted the guy and he removed the post "within five minutes."

On the ROI of IBM's blogging initiative

Says Christopher:

1. Morale is up, as measured by HR, over the past 18 months.

2. Blogging is free; there's no cost.

3. Blogging adds to the "relationship selling" that IBM espouses. I.e. developing relationships with the community that IBM is part of - as well as selling to.

On why Mark Jen was fired from Google

"Off the record," Christoper says jokingly... "Are there any bloggers in the audience?" Mark's offending blog postings were frowned upon by Google's marketing and communications folks, Chris told us. They were unhappy with ceding control of the message.

In this case, it related to Mark's disclosure on his Google blog of - yet another - positive earnings report for the company.  Not exactly news BUT I have to take the side of the Marcomm team here. Generally, there should be agreement at a company as to who can say what... and when... about news such as product launches and financial results. Does that make sense? Anyway, that's what blogging guidelines are for.

Google doesn't have an official published blogging policy (unless I"ve missed it). But in IBM's Blogging Policy I think this particular issue (revealing information normally handled by another channel) is discouraged.

Useful Links

Blogging at Big Blue: an Interview (with Chrisopher Barger)

IBM's blogger in chief - The (UK) Times, May 26, 2006

A few tips from SNCR's Inaugural Research Symposium

Having questioned whether live blogging is a good thing or not... I'm here this morning at The Colonnade in Boston to bring you a few tips from the Society for New Communications Research Inaugural Research Symposium.

First, a word of thanks to SNCR executive director Jennifer McClure who has worked incredibly hard to produce this event. (Thanks Jen!) Second, in the spirit of full disclosure, I am an SNCR Fellow (oops, looks like I need to add my bio).

You won't find anything, er, snarky in what I write today, given that I'm not a totally impartial observer.

The New Influencers

Tech jurnalist and consultant Paul Gillin offers a few highlights from his new book: The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media (to be published in spring 2007).

Tidbits from Paul:

- Used to be that a happy customer tells 3 people about your company; an unhappy customer tells 10 people. Now, via blogs, an unhappy customer tells 10,000 people. He shows as an example the by now iconic video clip of customer Vincent Ferrari trying to cancel his AOL account. (Yes, the AOL customer service rep was ultimately fired.)

- "Marketing has become a spread-sheet driven discipline."  But that's not working anymore, says Gillin. He's referring, presumably, to impressions, click-throughs and other Web metrics that online marketers live and die by.

- Refers to P&G CEO A.G. Lafley's keynote speech to the ANA's annual conference and his key point: marketers are most likely to succeed when they let customers be in control.

More later... maybe. I'm gonna just listen for a while.

Useful Links

AOL said, 'If you leave me, I'll do something crazy' - Randall Stross's Digital Domain column in The New York Times (requires subscription).

Backbone Media and Northeastern University's Blogging Success Study (published Nov. 2, 2006)

Wells Fargo's new blog about student loans has a lame name but it's a great idea

Was just checking out Wells Fargo's new blog: The Student LoanDown. I puzzled over the name for several minutes. Then read About this blog and realized immediately that it's the "lowdown" on all things related to student loans and financing higher education.

Great idea; lame name

Why not just call it The Student Loan Resource Center? In other words, *the* place to go online to get all sorts of information and stories about the confusing maze of student loans and scholarships.

I'm scheduled to speak to Ed Terpening, a member of Wells Fargo's Enterprise Blogging Team (as they call it), later this week to get an update on both of the bank's blogs. The first is Guided by History. It was launched in March '06 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of San Francisco's 1906 Earthquake & Fire.

They've gracefully migrated it to be a blog about community preparedness and response to natural disasters.

More later after I get the, er, lowdown from Ed.

Useful Link

Wells Fargo launches second blog (questions whether the topic is too boring; I disagree.)

GM CEO Rick Wagoner weighs in on FastLane blog on earnings, the turnaround, etc.

Just saw this today. GM's CEO Rick Wagoner, who has never before contributed to GM's FastLane blog, weighed in a couple of days ago with a long post on the behemoth's turnaround plan, second quarter earnings, and "why there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic." Wagoner writes:

"Although it hasn’t been fully recognized yet in the business media, there are strong signs that GM’s already well on the way toward a product-led resurgence." - GM CEO Rick Wagoner

The post is signed by "editor" and was probably written by the comms department. But it signifies a couple of things:

- GM is serious about using the blog as a way to "talk back" to (or even circumvent) mainstream media

- Wagoner takes the blog seriously enough that he's using it as a platform to put across a serious message about GM's turnaround prospects.

- Wagoner and GM realize they can efficiently reach a whole lot of folks through the blog

[via Robert Scoble]

Interesting, huh?!