Qantas Case Analysis: Social Media and Brand Management

This document presents a case analysis of Qantas, focusing on strategies to improve public perception, the role of social media, and the importance of a communication plan. The analysis explores how Qantas can leverage negative feedback, actively listen to customer concerns, and establish brand value to build customer loyalty and a positive brand image. It examines crucial factors for organizations using social media, such as developing a clear strategy, aligning social media efforts with organizational goals, and effectively addressing negative feedback. The case study also details the application of a communication plan, emphasizing timing, audience consideration, sender identification, key messaging, desired outcomes, medium selection, and frequency. The analysis draws on academic sources to support its arguments, providing a comprehensive overview of brand management and communication strategies within the context of the Qantas case.

Running head: QANTAS CASE ANALYSIS 1
Qantas Case Analysis
Student’s Name
University

QANTAS CASE ANALYSIS 2
Question (a) Future actions that Qantas can take to build a positive public perception of
the brand
Brand perception is a public belief system used to link with customers. This leads evokes
specific feeling in the mind of the consumer about quality, price and service (Sadeghi & Tabrizi,
2011). The outcome is brand identity that the organization uses to achieve competitive
advantage. By achieving public brand perception, Qantas airline can achieve competitive
advantage through brand loyalty and positive imagery. One way that Qantas can improve its
public perception is welcoming negative feedback. Since the social media forum had raised
negative feedback already, the Wirth needs to work on redeeming the public image through use
of negative feedback. By analyzing the feedbacks, management understands the truths that have
been revealed in the tweets, Qantas Airline can use this to build a positive brand by correcting
the issues that have been highlighted.
Another way that Qantas can address the public perception is showing interest in the
issues that affect customers by listening to them to develop positive brand image (Erdil, 2015).
By listening to customers and taking the concerns that they have, Wirth can demonstrate that
Qantas is willing to hear and care about the issues affecting customers. Instead of focusing on
how the brand is heard by the customer, there is need to connect with the customer at their
lowest point when they felt that the brand is not working. This strategy ca develop new
relationships thus creating a better image for the organization. By being accountable to the
challenges that customers have faced in the past, Qantas can redeem its image and show the
customer transparency and then clarify the situation.
Lastly, Valenzuela & Pinuer (2016) suggests that brand value can be used to put
measures in place that organizations use to ensure consistency with organizational requirements.

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Brand value defines what the customer expects in the service at Qantas and acts as a quality
indicator that management can use to assess the performance of the organization. The fact that
Qantas has had recent challenges indicates that there was no brand value which can be used to
measure the performance of the brand and put proper measures in place to address challenges
that the brand is suffering. A brand value defines the threshold of operation and ensures that
management is able to respond to organizational challenges on time. Qantas suffered the
problems in the case study because there were no mechanisms for addressing the changing needs
of the customer.
b. Important factors for an organization to consider when using social media like Twitter
Parveen, Jaafar, & Sulaiman (2016) suggests that Social media is a new marketing tool
that most organizations are using. The ability to offer an interactive framework that allows
organizations to interact with customers define its increasing role within the organization. One
factor that Qantas needs to consider is the social media strategy being used. Araujo & Zilber
(2016) suggests that social media is an interactive tool but requires management to have a clear
strategy to make it effective. For example, in using Twitter to carry out public opinion, the
company did not develop a proper strategy for using social media since it failed to analyze all the
variables that could arise in the course of the survey. Whether it is promotion, comment seeking,
special offer or prize draw competition, a strategy is relevant in ensuring that the organization
achieves the intended benefits of the tool.
Another factor to consider is the long term vision that the social media tool seeks to
achieve. Every process in the organization must be linked to the organizational goal and business
vision. Management needs to ensure that every process that they engage in is linked to the
organizational goal (Parveen, Jaafar, & Ainin, 2015). The role of the Twitter survey was not

QANTAS CASE ANALYSIS 4
properly defined and executed. Through linking the strategy with the organizational vision,
management has to incorporate both external and internal facets of the strategy and use it to
transform business objectives into social interactions.
Lastly, there is need to determine how the negative feedback from the social media tool
will be addressed. Treem & Leonardi (2013) suggests that social media platforms like Twitter
allow customers to post any comment that is seen by other customers which can lead to business
challenges. For example, the Qantas social media strategy elicited negative media reactions that
were contrary to what the organization was expecting. Since the system was automated, both
negative and positive comments were acknowledged in the same way which made customers feel
that the organization cares less about the issues that they were raising (Chivee, Hamilton, &
Cowan, 2008). The outcome was a tainted public image that Qantas achieved due to its inability
to manage positive feedback from social media.
c. Using the Communication Plan
Timing
Ensure that the timing of any message is analyzed based on the business trends that have been
witnessed in the organization. The timing of the message has to be accurate to achieve the
desired results. Company performance analysis needs to be used to determine the best timing for
the communication. For example, the timing of the public contest came at a time when the
organization was experiencing its low moments which means that it was best to address
challenges and streamline organizational processes before taking the poll.
Audience
Develop a message that caters for all customer segments that the organization serves.

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The market is segmented into demographic profiles like race, gender, age, education background
and even physical characteristics of the individual. Every communication that is made must
reflect the national values of the country by respecting the profiles of different demographics.
Since Australia has suffered the challenge of racism for a very long time, it means that
communication messages and images must be organized in way that does not appear
discriminative. By using an image of a pair of customers wearing wigs and black face paint,
Qantas did not know that the images were racists which means that there is a problem with
audience issue in the company. As a business organization, the audience reflects all customers
that engage with the organization thus the need to address the demographic differences that exist.
Sender
The sender of the message must be Qantas airline not an individual, the customer is supposed to
feel the initiative of the organization and not the individual.
The sender of the message determines the interpretation that the public will have. This can either
be personal or cooperate. The sender of the image must reflect the corporate image of the
organization in all circumstances.
Key message
Corporate communications rely on key messages that are communicated by the organization.
When analyzing an organization, the whole conversation is not used but rather key messages are
picked and interpreted based on the context that they were presented in. By using people wearing
wigs and black painted faces, the key message that the public got was racism while by
acknowledging a negative feedback with “wow! Some creative tweets out there. Keep the entries
coming?” created the message that Qantas cared less about the issues that the employees were
facing.

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Desired outcome
The desired outcome must be determined and all the variables analyzed to determine both
negative and positive outcomes. Negative feedbacks should have a mechanism for
acknowledging and addressing them immediately.
Medium
The message and the target audience should be used to determine the medium to be used. For
interactive messages, social medium can be used while for specific messages, emails and letters
can be used.
Material
Newsletters, websites, press releases, event advisories and social media platforms
Frequency
The frequency of the communication will depend on the nature of the message and the issue
being focused on. The frequency can be weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually.

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References
Araújo, J. B., & Zilber, S. N. (2016). What Factors Lead Companies to Adopt Social Media in
their processes: Proposal and Test of a Measurement Model. Brazilian Business Review,
1(10).
Chivee, L., Hamilton, B., & Cowan, E. (. (2008). orking the Way to Success: Online Social
Networks for Workplace and Competitive Advantage, People and Strategy, Ne. Thousand
Oaks: Sage.
ERDİL, S. (2015). Effects of customer brand perceptions on store image and purchase intention:
An application in apparel clothing. 11th International Strategic Management Conference,
(pp. 196-205).
Parveen, F., Jaafar, N. I., & Ainin, S. (2015). Social media usage and organizational
performance: Reflections of Malaysian social media managers. Telematics and
Informatics, 32(1), 67-78.
Parveen, F., Jaafar, N. I., & Sulaiman Ainin. (2016). Social media’s impact on organizational
performance and entrepreneurial orientation in organizations. Management Decision,
54(2), 2208-2234.
Sadeghi, T., & Tabrizi, K. G. (2011). The Correlation Between Feelings and Brand Perception
on Purchase Intention. World Applied Sciences Journal, 12(5), 697-705.
Treem, J. W., & Leonardi, P. M. (2013). Social Media Use in Organizations: Exploring the
Affordances of Visibility, Editability, Persistence, and Association. Annals of the
International Communication Association, 36(1), 143-189.
Valenzuela, L. M., & Pinuer, F. J. (2016). Influence of customer value orientation, brand value,
and business ethics level on organizational performance. Review of Business

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Management, 18(59).