The Great Barrier Breach

The Great Barrier Breach

A look into a mishandled crisis communication practice

Zalfa Farah

In 2018, the popular hotel chain “Marriott” experienced the biggest ever cyber-attack on their security system, resulting in a breach of privacy for over 500 million of its guests. Data such as email addresses, mailing addresses, telephone numbers, credit cards and passport numbers were stolen by hackers, consequentially leading to a huge blow to the company’s reputation (click here for video).

A case of the bad PR:

I wasn't quite expecting this from one of the leaders in the hospitality industry to say the least. Having stayed with the Marriott group a couple of times, I have always held them in high regard. However, the handling of this particular security issue, makes me worried that my personal information is in the hands of hackers. The Marriott Hotel Group responded to and handled this crisis was very poor (see article) and does not set a good example to smaller hotel chains that look up to the Marriott, not to mention the 500 million clients that were affected by this crisis. The general consensus in the media and from their clients was that Marriott failed to provide proper reassurance to their clients and could have handled the situation much better.

Runaway Mary

As humans, it accepted and expected that we are not always willing to take the blame for our actions, and organizations are no different. The Marriott attempted to re-direct the blame onto “Starwood”; a subsidiary of Marriott.  Although they may be partly to blame, i'm sure many would agree with me that the data and guests stayed at the Marriott, making them fully responsible for their customer data. 

This should have been handled better and the media has made that clear. It goes without saying that an organization must take responsibility, particularly in times of crisis, as it is the media tends to focus on responsibility when reporting about organizational crisis, more so than the organization will want them too (Nijkrake, Gosselt, & Gutteling, 2015).

Hurry Up to Burry Up

In my opinion, the Marriott  Hotel ran away  from their issues without really taking into consideration their customers. During such a crisis, it is not the wisest idea to burry or leave out information that might be useful for your customers to know about. Sadly however, the Marriott are not the first nor will  they be the last organization to mishandle such a crisis. My initial view is that if other companies are also mishandling their issues, then maybe it just goes with the territory of running a large organizations and clients should learn to expect this from time to time. However, 

recent research has suggested that there are very simple strategies an organization can implement to avoid crises. For example; the CONSOLE tool; Coherence, Orientation, Nuance, Support, Ongoing, Leadership, Emotions, (Tan, Pang, & Kang, 2019). I was unaware that even something as simple as the language used by the company can have a big impact on the client's perception of them and how they dealt with the crisis (Stephens, Malone, & Bailey, 2005). Now i'm starting to believe not just what is said but the way it is  said can play a huge role in the client's reaction to the crisis. After all, the customer is a priority…especially in hospitality!   

Final words

A study by Schafradd, Van Zoonen, & Vehoeven (2016), has shown that the more information and the type of information that companies can give the media in their press releases, is vital to the chances of the media making a story out of it. Especially in a time of crisis, a company’s best friend is the media; the media needs crises to write about and a company needs the media to pick up the story. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. This is why, it is important for crisis strategists to understand the different factors that contribute to the media picking up a story at all. 

About the Author

Zalfa Farah is currently a Masters student in Communication Science. She was born in Lebanon and raised in both Dubai and Beirut. After graduating with a BA in Sociology, she completed graduate work at both CNN London and UNDP-Beirut. Zalfa then changed her career path to music and management, during which she opened up a Music academy with her mother which caters to students of all ages & backgrounds and students with special needs, whilst promoting Lebanese musicians to the international markets.

References 

Girgis, A., & Sanson-Fisher, R. W. (1995). Breaking bad news: consensus guidelines for medical practitioners. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 13(9), 2449-2456. doi:10.1200/jco.1995.13.9.2449

Nijkrake, J., Gosselt, J. F., & Gutteling, J. M. (2015). Competing frames and tone in corporate communication versus media coverage during a crisis. Public Relations Review, 41(1), 80-88. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.10.010

Schafraad, P., Van Zoonen, W., & Verhoeven, P. (2016). The news value of Dutch corporate press releases as a predictor of corporate agenda building power. Public Relations Review, 42(3), 451-458. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2015.11.014

Tan, K. K., Pang, A., & Kang, J. X. (2019). Breaking bad news with CONSOLE: Toward a framework integrating medical protocols with crisis communication. Public Relations Review, 45(1), 153-166. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.10.013