A second look into a ‘mishandled crisis communication practice’
By Margarita R. Boncheva
You surely remember the 2018 scandal around the hotel group Marriott that experienced an immense data breach affecting the files of up to 500 million customers. Few days ago, a fellow colleague of mine Zalfa Farah published a blog about the topic, focusing on all the missteps the hotel chain did while handling its crisis of stolen customers’ data.
Zalfa remained fairly critical about the communication of Marriott, describing it as “very poor” and as “fail[ing] to provide proper reassurance to […] clients.” Among others, she portraited Marriott as not willing to accept responsibility about the events, as not being transparent enough and stressed that the company could have handled the situation much better.
Even when I do agree with some of my colleague’s comments, I think that much can be added to the discussion of what went wrong and, most importantly, what went right in Marriott’s crisis communication.
Yes, I do believe that Marriott could have been even more transparent. Besides, it could have provided more emotional on top of the factual information, thus showing more empathy and concern for its customers. There is no question that Marriott did some mistakes in handling its crisis and that there is some room for improvement.
Today, however, I would like to leave the negatives aside and instead shed light on some aspects of Marriott’s PR communication that I found indeed positive and worth mentioning. I believe it is necessary to do so since both bad as well as good examples in the practice provide learning opportunities for PR practitioners.
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Setting the crisis scene…
In an official statement on the 30 of November 2018, Marriott revealed that its Starwood division guest reservation database had been compromised by an unofficial party whereby sensitive customer information was stolen.
What did the company do right that PRPs can adopt when handling a crisis?
1) Providing credible information
Even when some critics may say that Marriott knew about the breach since mid-September and it waited too long to announce it, it is a common practice that companies wait until they could confirm what happened, gather enough facts and provide credible information to their stakeholders without causing a false alarm.
Scholars claim that practitioners are often willing to accept responsibility but not immediately since at the moment of outbreak there is little information available and they do not want to risk giving out incorrect information.
2) Being the first to disclose crisis information
Yet, even when Marriott took its time confirm the facts about the breach, the company was still the first to talk about its own crisis and this was a very clever step.
According to experts, when bad news is initially coming from the organization itself, there is reduced reputational damage compared to news media being the primary source of crisis information. Besides, advocates of the self-disclosure strategy claim that, if an organization desires to remain in control of the situation, it should portray its own story before someone else tells the story of the crisis.
3) Framing the crisis in a favorable way and setting media’s agenda
PR experts and scholars have found out that factors such as surprise, impact-negative consequences and elite organizations increase a press release’s chance for inclusion in the news agenda. In contrast to Zalfa, I very much believe that by ticking all the right boxes with their press release, Marriott gained journalists attention and made it to the news agenda.
To minimize damage to its reputation, Marriott tried to frame the crisis by highlighting certain events and providing interpretation of events in its initial statement. Marriott had its lucky day since the media picked the provided frame, added some competing frames or negative tone in some cases, but still a lot of the information that the company wanted reached the wide public. The media started referring to the initial statement and this did not give much space for rumors to direct the crisis discourse.
4) Choosing an accommodative strategy in severe crises with strong attribution
In its statement, Marriott gave details of what the company knows so far and made clear that it is fully cooperating with any investigations. Moreover, the company explained which steps is taking to resolve the situation and ensured its guests that it has started actions to notify all affected guests. Besides, the company announced that it has provided a dedicated website and a phone line for those affected by the data breach, wherecustomers can find more information about the events and the actions they can take to protect themselves from the threat of the crisis. Finally, Marriott shared how it: “deeply regret[s] that this happened” and is going to cover the full-year cost of web monitoring services for the ones affected.
All in all, this second look from a different perspective complements my colleagues’ work and provides a more holistic view of the situation so that PRPs can learn from the bad as well as good examples in the practice.
About the author:
Margarita is currently a master student in Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam. She is an ambitious person who enjoys challenges and is looking for future career development, growth and success in the desired field of Corporate Communication. Writing PR related blog posts is her newest passion in which she combines her creativity and academic knowledge gained during her studies.
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