Management Communication Report: Qantas's 2011 Twitter Crisis Analysis

This report analyzes the 2011 Qantas Twitter crisis, where a promotional campaign backfired due to negative social media sentiment. The report examines the airline's communication failures, including a lack of immediate response and responsibility, and proposes strategies for restoring positive brand perception. These strategies include acknowledging mistakes, taking full responsibility, and offering compensation to affected customers. The report emphasizes the importance of careful content examination, appropriate timing, and responsible social media management. A course of action is recommended for Qantas, including a timeline, audience, key messages, and desired outcomes to revive the tarnished brand image. The report highlights the impact of social media on brand reputation and provides recommendations for proactive crisis management to prevent future disasters, referencing relevant literature on social media, crisis management, and public relations.

Student’s Last Name 1
Management Communication
By (Name)
Course
Professor
University
Date

Student’s Last Name 2
To: Qantas Management
From: Olivia Wirth
Subject: Revisiting the 2011 Twitter Nosedive
Case Summary
It was on 23rd November 2011, when Qantas Airline decided to offer a promotion via
Twitter. Unfortunately, their efforts turned disastrous as social media users took that chance to
troll the company for recent failures (Bowdon, 2014 p.108). The promotional tag, according to
the official Twitter account of the company, asked users the following question; “What is your
dream luxury inflight experience? (Be creative!) Answer must include #QantasLuxury."
Strategies to restore a positive brand perception
There are various actions that can be taken restore the positive brand perception. Qantas
should start the recovery process by acknowledging that the social media disaster was not
addressed appropriately. Notably, the company was somewhat reluctant in dealing with the
disaster. In face of such a situation, Qantas should have started by looking at the comments made
on their Twitter page and inform the public that the issues of concern were being addressed.
Second, the company should have taken full responsibility for their mistakes as this approach has
been proven to work in multiple social media disasters (Pfeffer, Zorbach, and Carley, 2014
p.120). Third, the company should have continually let the people know that their issues would
be solved in the shortest time possible. To let the people know that the company was doing its
best to address the issue, Qantas should have, for instance, compensated the victims of the flight
grounding by offering them tickets at a discounted price or giving a monetary compensation.

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Qantas should, perhaps, be more thorough about examining comments, concerns, or feedback on
its social media platforms, and at the same time, incorporate managerial strategies in cases where
possible disasters are detected. Of course, there are various solutions to disasters relating to
social media. Such solutions are tailored to restore the damaged brand image and attract even
more customers.
The Executive of Government and Corporate Affairs at Qantas (Olivia Wirth), should
start the recovery journey by acknowledging that the company indeed failed its customers and
proceed by asking for a public apology. After that, the company should channel some of its
resources to hiring an expert in PR so that the social media account can be monitored from time
to time and also to ensure that possible threats are eliminated before they cause considerable
damages. In addition to that, multiple studies have suggested that one of the best methods for a
company to restore its tarnished image is by taking advantage of every chance available to give
back to the society (Wan, Koh, Ong, and Pang, 2015 p. 84). In fact, this is one of the best
methods to make the public forget about the disaster. From time to time, a significant number of
families are affected by natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes. Such occurrences
present Qantas with an ample chance to restore its image by, for instance, giving food and
beddings to the affected families.
Factors to consider when using social media
Social media is one of the most effective, convenient, and cheap marketing tool. Multiple
companies can attribute their success to social media. Notwithstanding, companies should note
that social media possesses the power to build and destroy. It is hence inevitable for companies
to show a high degree of vigilance especially when it comes to use of social media. Qantas

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should take note of various essential factors to consider when using social media to prevent a
reoccurrence of the 2011 social media disaster.
First, Qantas should cross-examine social media messages before posting them.
Messages intended for the customers should be free from offensive or abusive tones (Karl Grebe,
2013 p.80). Abusive or discriminatory messages have been proven to affect the sales of a
company. An abusive remark about the black community, for instance, will see the victimized
group boycott the company’s products. Moreover, companies may be sued for posting offensive
contents on their social media platforms. The result of such is time wastage and unnecessary
expenditures to solve the court cases and this is certainly not what the companies need. In brief,
examining content before posting saves businesses from a lot of problems.
Second, Qantas should learn when to and not post content on their social media platforms
(Shockley-Zalabak, Morreale, and Hackman, 2010 p.120). The 2011 Twitter disaster is a perfect
example of bad timing. At the time when Qantas engineered a promotion which would see
customers win first-class pyjamas and some luxury amenity kits, there were widespread
industrial relations disputes at the company. In essence, this was not the appropriate moment to
offer promotions as there was the need to first solve the internal issues affecting the company.
The customers hijacked the promotional hashtag and issues all sorts of abusive and sarcastic
comments instead of participating in the promotion.
Finally, responsibility is a key element that every social media user should possess.
Without responsibility, things will turn disastrous. For this reason, Qantas should channel some
of its resources to hiring a responsible administrator to manage the activities of its social media
accounts. Some of the functions of the manager will include ensuring that the timing is right and

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filtering all the abusive or discriminatory messages prior to posting them on social media. The
administrator should be more focused on ensuring that disaster do not happen, rather than letting
them happen and trying to find a solution later as this will do the company more harm than good.
Course of Action
Below is a course of action for Olivia Wirth which is a recommendation to the
management at Qantas. The course of action should be enforced with immediate effect
considering that the reputation at the Qantas will definitely affect the profits if corrective
measures are not taken. Corrective measures should include, but not limited to, acknowledging
the mistakes made by the company and issuing an apology publicly on the same matter.
1. Timing • What date should be used?
This matter should be given the highest degree of urgency considering that the finances
of the company are at stake. November 24th, 2011 will be good timing.
2. Audience •Who should receive it?
Qantas management
3. Sender Who will send it?
Olivia Wirth (the executive of Government and Corporate Affairs at Qantas)
4. Key Message • What are the main points and themes?
The company will possess high vigilance especially when posting messages on social
media platforms. Besides that, the company will try its best to solve disputes with its employees

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to avoid industrial relations disputes. From this moment, customers will get the best out of their
spending.
5. Desired Outcome • What behaviors are desired?
To revive the tarnished image
6. Medium • What communication channels will be used?
A conference
7. Frequency • What should we leave behind?
Past mistakes should be left behind but should act as a lesson.
8. Materials • How often should we send messages?
When there is need to do so.

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Bibliography
Bowdon, M.A., 2014. Tweeting an ethos: Emergency messaging, social media, and teaching
technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 23(1), pp.35-54.
Karl Grebe, S., 2013. Things can get worse: How mismanagement of a crisis response strategy
can cause a secondary or double crisis: the example of the AWB corporate scandal. Corporate
Communications: An International Journal, 18(1), pp.70-86.
Pfeffer, J., Zorbach, T. and Carley, K.M., 2014. Understanding online firestorms: Negative
word-of-mouth dynamics in social media networks. Journal of Marketing Communications,
20(1-2), pp.117-128.
Shockley-Zalabak, P.S., Morreale, S. and Hackman, M., 2010. Building the high-trust
organization: Strategies for supporting five key dimensions of trust (Vol. 7). John Wiley & Sons.
Wan, S., Koh, R., Ong, A. and Pang, A., 2015. Parody social media accounts: Influence and
impact on organizations during a crisis. Public Relations Review, 41(3), pp.381-385.