Case Report: When the Twitterverse Turns on You

(Harvard Business Review)

Author: Jana Seijts

Submitted to
Prof. Swatantra

Submitted by
Aarjav Sethi
2016IPM002
Section - E
PGP 2019-21 Term -2 WAC
Letter of Transmittal

Dear Professor Swatantra,

I am submitting herewith my report on the case “Disability Accommodations and Promotions at

Bunco” along with the implementation plan for the suggested solution for the case’s problem.
I look forward to your feedback on the report.
Thank you for your guidance on the report writing.

Sincerely,
Aarjav Sethi

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Executive Summary
The case study is based on the PR efforts of Canadian Jet to restore the company image.
Charlene Thompson, head of public relations for Canadian Jet found it necessary to come up
with a plan to tackle the issue of negative press and the dip in public image due to cancellation
and delays. To address this, she launched its first twitter contest: #CanJetLuxury along with its
PR firm Wringley & Walters, but the plan backfires and people start using it as a medium to
express their disappointment with the company.
They need to come up with a plan to avoid any further damage to the image of the company.
Options available in front of them are to keep their focus on positive tweets and let the
negative wave die down, to publicly apologize, to address the concerns individually or to end
the contest altogether.
Decision is taken on the basis of effectiveness in dealing with negative tweets, long term
impact, and timely curbing of the problem. Keeping the above mentioned criteria in mind,
addressing the concerns individually comes up to be the recommended solution.

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Table of Contents

S. No Content Page no.

1 Situation Analysis 4

2 Problem Statement 4

3 Alternatives 4

4 Criteria for Evaluation 5

5 Evaluation of Alternatives 5

6 Recommendation 6

7 Implementation Plan 6

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Situation Analysis
The case study is based on the PR efforts of Canadian Jet to restore the company image.
Charlene Thompson, head of public relations for Canadian Jet found it necessary to come up
with a plan to tackle the issue of negative press and the dip in public image due to cancellation
and delays. Therefore, she launched its first twitter contest: #CanJetLuxury along with its PR
firm Wringley & Walters, with the reward of a round trip journey. However, the campaign
backfired with people using the contest as a platform for voicing their disappointment with the
company. Even though there were more positive responses than negative ones, the issue had a
potential of catching the eye of the media, and turning into a PR disaster, especially when the
hashtag was trending.
The team had discussed the possibility of the above mentioned situation happening. Andrea
Kemp, the company’s account manager was especially vocal about it and pointed out the
similar situation faced by JPMorgan Chase and McDonalds. Even then, the team had not
prepared for the countermeasures beforehand and therefore had to call for the emergency
meeting to decide the future course of action after the issue emerged. Several suggestions
were offered by the team, but they were unable to form a consensus over the future course of
action to be undertaken by the company.
Media had already started showing interest in the matter, with Carrie Shultz of PR News
contacting Charlene to talk about the issue.
Due to the volatile nature of the issue, quick actions were required in order to get things in
control. Jerry Schneider, the CEO of Candian Jet, asked Charlene to take the final call.

Problem Statement
What steps should Charlene take to avoid the further damage to the image of Canadian Jet?

Alternatives
1. Focus and publicize the positive tweets which are more in numbers and let the negative
wave fade away by itself
2. Issue a public apology through their social media channels, addressing the issues raised
by the public.
3. Address the negative responses individually through a social media team dedicated
towards the task
4. End the contest to avoid any further negative tweets
.

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Criteria for Evaluation
1. Effectives in dealing with negative tweets
2. Long term Impact on image of the company
3. Timely curbing the further damage

Evaluation of Alternatives

1. Focus and publicize the positive tweets which are more in numbers and let the
negative wave fade away by itself
This approach would not help inn addressing the backlash received and would further
aggravate the public due to the display of apathy from the company’s side. Company’s
image would suffer as they would come off as ignorant towards their customers.
Waiting for the negative wave to fade away by itself would not help in timely curbing
the further damage due to lack of promptness in this option.

2. Issue a public apology through their social media channels, addressing the concerns
rose in tweets.
Public apology would address the negative tweets, hence displaying the company’s
concern over the issues raised by public. It would also help in timely curbing down the
negative responses, due to the prompt display of action but would not be very effective
solving the grievances of public. But, issuing an apology would mean the admission of
wrongdoing and would make the company look guilty in the eyes of public.

3. Address the negative responses individually through a social media team dedicated
towards the task
Addressing the negative responses individually would help deliver a personalized
response to the grievances raised by public and would display the company’s dedication
in addressing the concerns of their customer. It would further help I enhancing the
image of company due to the customer centric approach. This approach would be time
taking due to the number of issues to be addressed.

4. End the contest to avoid further damage

Ending the contest prematurely would have a impact on company’s image and would
make the company look like an entity who runs away from the situation instead of
coming up with the solution. This would also discourage the people who had tweeted

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 positively and would create a negative long term impact of the company. This would
help in curbing down the negative tweets, but would also have an impact on the
positive response from public in future.

Recommendation
It is recommended to address the negative responses individually on the public platform
through a social media team dedicated towards the task.

Implementation Plan
A team of Canadian Jet and Wrigley & Walters employees should be created to timely address
the issues raised in order to not let the spread increased. The issues should be addressed
individually but on public platform, to create an image of a company who is genuinely
concerned with the grievances of its customers. Small tokens of compensation must be
provided to the concerns which are identified as genuine. Company employees must be
encouraged to tweet directly as a reply the negative tweets to stop the spread of negative
information and give out a sense of unity within the organisation.