Qantas breach: In a crisis, you need to reach people where they are
Part two of PR crisis expert Peter Wilkinson's review of Qantas' response to its recent customer information breach.
With every crisis we watch, learn and adapt. What we know is, in a crisis or any other comms, it is not about doing what worked a couple of years ago, or even a few months ago.
First, people’s news-gathering habits quickly change. Are they even habits anymore? I did a review with our staff on where they got information on the Qantas cyber-attack.
Besides traditional online media channels, the Qantas website, YouTube, Reddit, Daily Aus, X, Ground News, Instagram and email news summaries. Our team didn’t mention TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or influencers, but others have.
If that’s how Qantas’ 5.7 million affected customers are scattered, that’s where the spokesperson needs to be. We live in a fractured news world. People now control how we reach them, by their clicks.
Second, notably, people are relying less on journalists. They go to the source, or group chats.
Third, how they roam their universe matters, increasingly on their phones. Specialists advise me that people of all ages are now preferring short videos, in portrait, not landscape.
All this sounds over-the-top? Yes, unless you really want to make the most of a crisis to improve your reputation.
Fourth, it raises the issue of whether communications is the best use of a CEO’s time in a crisis that will last days or weeks. Crises are resource-intensive: time, people, dollars.
In a recent crisis, we used a general manager, liberating the boss to oversee the issue, not be in it. It worked.
Our GM was able to communicate in the vernacular with empathy, concisely, explicitly and not leave gaps for interpretation or rumour.
He took advice, stayed on message and didn’t become over-confident. He was available. People take confidence from that. Faced with a potential disaster, trust went up.
Fifth, it’s getting easier to find out where the chatter is, and easier by the day. Besides media monitors, AI is becoming increasingly effective at finding community gossip. We use Perplexity.ai, plus the well-known others. There may be better ones.
It takes minutes to find out where people are talking about you, so where you need to be.
Subreddits were big on the Qantas attack, as were LinkedIn discussions, X, and YouTube, including, of course, the news media outlets.
There were techie discussions on specialist forums, plus international cybersecurity and aviation industry coverage.
If you want to stay ahead of the narrative, all of these channels present opportunities to improve your reputation. And if you are distrusted like Woolies, Coles, Optus or Qantas (according to Roy Morgan) that’s hopefully a focus.
Peter Wilkinson
Six, it’s worth adding that trolls can do the same, finding where the chatter is, where they can attack or vent. And if you are a legal firm angling for a class action, that’s where to roam.
Seven, and most important, strategy wins!
In a short crisis, over in a day or so, the aim can be to make the story boring asap; killing the story kills the crisis. We need to focus on where people are going to source immediate news: radio, TV, and the traditional news outlets. The decision becomes a continuous reassessment of whether we are better off in, or not in, the story. Sometimes, saying nothing wins. Beware, in those situations, mismanagement can become the ongoing story, bigger than the mishap.
In a longer crisis, or when we are already in the bad books, we need to do more. We aim higher and use it as an opportunity to improve our reputation. We are on a long-term journey, transitioning from bad to less bad, and eventually to a good reputation outcome. And to do that, we need to have winning messages, the right spokesperson, and the resources to keep ahead of the narrative, wherever it is.
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