ENGLISH FOR MARKETING PROFESSIONALS II
HBR CASE STUDIES
1 FROM HASHTAG TO HEADACHE: WHEN TE FEED TURNS AGAINST YOU
TEXT
Charlene Thompson reached for her phone on the nightstand. It was still before 6:00 AM, so the iPhone’s
glow was the only light in the room. Her husband, James, turned over and groaned.
“That’s a horrible habit,” he said. “You should always have coffee before checking your in-box.”
“This is important, honey,” she whispered. “I need to see what’s happening with the contest.”
Charlene was the head of public relations for Canadian Jet. Yesterday, with the help of the company’s PR
firm, Wrigley & Walters, the airline had launched its first Instagram contest: The person who posted the
most creative photo or Reel using the hashtag #CanJetLuxury would win two round-trip tickets to any of
the company’s destinations.
For Charlene, who had led the airline’s communications for 15 years, this campaign was critical. Six
months before, a third of Canadian Jet’s fleet had been grounded for a week owing to some engine safety
concerns, causing a slew of cancellations and delays. There had also been some negative press about the
airline’s approach to labor relations following a threatened strike by the ground crews. The team at
Wrigley & Walters had designed the campaign to restore Canadian Jet’s image as a preferred carrier.
“Shoot. This isn’t good,” Charlene said as she scrolled through the hashtag feed.
“What? It’s not catching on?” James asked groggily.
She showed him her screen, which was filled with sarcastic images: A photo of a grounded plane with the
caption: ‘Getting to my destination without the engine catching fire #CanJetLuxury’; a grainy video of a
crowded terminal: ‘Being stranded 3,000 miles from my family for two days straight #CanJetLuxury’; a
graphic of a protest line: ‘#CanJetLuxury is getting away with not paying employees fairly.’
“Ouch,” James said.
This is completely backfiring, Charlene thought as she got out of bed.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I need to call Jerry.”
7:30 AM
Jerry Schneider, Canadian Jet’s CEO, was tapping his fingers on his desk while he and Charlene waited for
the others to arrive. He hadn’t said much yet, but Charlene could tell that he was feeling the stress, too.
Tim Powell, Charlene’s director of social media, showed up with Andrea Kemp, the company’s account
manager from Wrigley & Walters. Both looked flustered.
“Sorry,” Tim said. “We had trouble getting Andrea’s pass.”
Andrea shook Jerry’s hand and started speaking before she sat down.
1
,“OK, so we knew this was a risk going in, right? People love to complain on the internet, especially when
they can essentially hide behind burner accounts like this.” Charlene knew Andrea’s fast talking wasn’t a
sign of nerves. She was the sort of person who was energized by a crisis. And she was right—throughout
the planning process, she’d reminded Charlene and her team that critics could use social media
campaigns like this one to bash the company. JPMorgan Chase had been a victim of hashtag backlash
after launching a Twitter Q&A, she had told them, and she had sent around a Forbes.com article about
how one of McDonald’s campaigns had resulted in a “bashtag.” She reminded them now of those cases.
“Knowing we’re in good company isn’t much comfort,” Jerry said. He asked Tim for an update.
“The posts are still coming in: 200 more photos with the CanJetLuxury hashtag since 6:00 AM. The
majority are fine—good, even—but there are some doozies.”
Jerry rolled his eyes. “I don’t even want to see any more.”
“And we’re going viral, which isn’t great, given the circumstances,” said Tim.
“How do we stop hitting the Explore page?” Jerry asked. The CEO was three decades removed from the
millennials, and although he did his best to keep up with social media, he wasn’t as savvy as Tim or
Charlene.
“If you cancel, you may alienate the people who sent in genuine entries.”
“We could change the contest, change the hashtag,” Tim suggested. “Other companies have done that.”
“And it’s worked,” Andrea noted. “By focusing people on a new hashtag or a fresh photo challenge, you
draw attention away from the one that was causing problems, and people are less inclined to post their
own witty insults. It could take a few days for the old hashtag feed to clear out, though.”
“So we could save the contest and let this whole mess blow over?” Jerry asked.
“Or we could just end the contest altogether,” Charlene offered.
“Yes, you might remember that’s what JPMorgan did on Twitter,” Andrea said. “When people hijacked the
hashtag to tweet about ‘capitalist pigs,’ they canceled the Q&A.”
“And they came off looking like the arrogant jerks everyone was claiming them to be,” Tim said.
Andrea nodded. “Let’s not jump the gun here. Most of these posts are positive. They show some lovely
images of customers’ experiences with Canadian Jet. If you cancel, you may alienate the people who sent
in genuine entries and are hoping for those round-trip tickets. It may be better to ignore the bashes and
focus on the good publicity you’re getting.”
“And when the press starts calling?” Charlene asked. She worried it was just a matter of time before she
would have to start fielding questions.
“You take the high road and say how pleased you are with the positive responses,” Andrea suggested.
“So far I’m not loving any of these options,” Jerry said.
Tim cleared his throat. “We could apologize. It’s worked for us in the past.” Three years back, one of the
operations VPs had come up with the idea to make buttons with “We’re sorry” in big black letters and
have flight attendants, pilots, and airport staff wear them whenever a flight was delayed or canceled,
even if it wasn’t the airline’s fault. Customer response to the tactic had been overwhelmingly positive.
The buttons had even helped win the airline an industry customer service award.
“But what exactly are you apologizing for here?” Andrea asked. “You just launched a contest. You didn’t
exploit political events like Kenneth Cole did or pull a Home Depot and send out a picture that people
2
,thought was racist. It makes sense that those companies said they were sorry, but you haven’t done
anything wrong.”
“That’s not what these people think,” Charlene said, pointing to her iPad. She showed them a few of the
latest Reels: a video of an empty aisle ‘Arriving a day late to your daughter’s wedding #CanJetLuxury’, a
photo of a worker ‘Screwing your workforce #CanJetLuxury.’
“Enough,” groaned Jerry, holding his head in his hands. The room was silent.
“I’m willing to take a stab at an apology,” Charlene said. “I’m not sure exactly what it’s going to say, but
give me an hour.”
8:30 AM
Charlene stared at the blank Word document on her screen. She typed: ON BEHALF OF CANADIAN JET, I’D
LIKE TO APOLOGIZE FOR THE FEELINGS THAT THIS CONTEST BROUGHT UP. She hit Delete. WE AT
CANADIAN JET ARE SORRY FOR DISAPPOINTING OUR CUSTOMERS. WE’RE COMMITTED TO— “That doesn’t
work, either,” she said out loud to her computer, pressing the backspace key. She tried a more direct
approach: WE’RE SORRY THAT OUR PLANES SOMETIMES BREAK, THAT YOU THINK WE TREAT OUR
EMPLOYEES UNFAIRLY, AND THAT YOU DON’T LIKE OUR CONTEST.
Her assistant poked her head in the door. “I’ve got Carrie Schultz on the line.” This ought to be fun,
Charlene thought as she picked up the phone.
Carrie, a blogger for PR News, explained that she was working on a piece about social media gaffes and
wondered if Charlene wanted to comment on the crisis in progress.
“I wouldn’t call it a ‘crisis.’ A handful of people poking fun at your business doesn’t constitute a crisis.”
“Are you willing to explain on the record why you’re ignoring the responses? You keep posting on
Instagram as if everything is going smoothly.”
Charlene quickly pulled up the airline’s Instagram and saw that a post had gone out at 8:00 AM: “Keep
the responses coming. At this rate, it’s going to take years to judge this contest!” She put her phone on
mute and yelled to her assistant to get Tim.
She could hear him running down the hallway. He looked ashen reading the post on her screen. She
pointed to the receiver and mouthed, “Carrie Schultz.”
She took the phone off mute. “We’re not ready to comment just yet, Carrie.”
“You’d better get ready,” she responded. “You’re appearing on everyone's feed, you know.”
9:00 AM
“Never mind arrogant. We look completely tone-deaf at this point,” said Jerry, his face red.
Tim was about to say something when Andrea cut in. “I’m sorry. This is our agency’s fault. We prepared
the posts yesterday and scheduled them to go out throughout the day. We were trying to save some
time.”
“Jerry, we’ve turned off the automatic posts,” Charlene assured him. “But still—we’ve got to figure out
what we’re doing. And fast.”
“What about the apology?” Tim asked.
“Andrea was right,” Charlene sighed. “It’s hard to know exactly what we’re apologizing for. The only thing
I can think to say is, ‘Sorry we’ve disappointed you in various ways over the past 10 years.’”
3
, “What’s wrong with that?” Tim asked. Charlene looked over at him to see if he was joking. He wasn’t
smiling.
“We look like chumps, that’s what,” Jerry said, his voice rising.
“So, are we pulling it?” Tim asked. They all looked at Jerry.
“What else have we got for this year?”
“This is our biggest social media campaign,” Charlene replied. “We’ve planned a few other things, but
nothing on this scale.” She tried not to look at Andrea. Her agency was as much on the line as Canadian
Jet.
“This is not a lost cause,” Andrea said, still utterly composed. “It’s been less than 24 hours. I’m telling
you, this thing may die down as quickly as it heated up.”
“I understand why you want to save this, Andrea. But we need to be cautious here,” Charlene said.
“Canadian Jet can’t suffer another PR problem.”
Jerry sat down heavily in his chair. “I know we normally take your firm’s advice on these things, Andrea.
You’re the experts here, but you’re also the ones who got us into this mess.” He turned to Charlene. “As
our spokesperson, I’d like you to make the call.”
CANADIAN JET
Canadian airline company
o Ex. Brussels Airlines
Wants to restore its image as a ‘preferred carrier’
o They want to become the first choice
CHARACTERS
CEO: Jerry Schneider
Head of PR: Charlene Thompson
Director of social media: Tim Powell
Account manager from Wringley & Walters: Andrea Kemp
CANADIAN JET’S PR CHALLENGES
Engine safety concerns: Delays and cancellations
o Huge deal: People don’t trust you anymore
Negative press on airline’s approach to labor relations
LAUNCHING THE #CANJETLUXURY CONTEST
The day before: Launch of CanJet’s first Instagram contest
Challenge: To post the most creative photo or reel using the hashtag #CanJetLuxury on Instagram
Prize: Two round-trip tickets to any of CanJet’s destinations
THE BACKLASH AGAINST CANADIAN JET
= A strong negative reaction from many people. It happens when people are angry or upset about
something and publicly show their criticism.
A photo of a grounded plane:
o ‘Getting to my destination without the engine catching fire #CanJetLuxury’
4
HBR CASE STUDIES
1 FROM HASHTAG TO HEADACHE: WHEN TE FEED TURNS AGAINST YOU
TEXT
Charlene Thompson reached for her phone on the nightstand. It was still before 6:00 AM, so the iPhone’s
glow was the only light in the room. Her husband, James, turned over and groaned.
“That’s a horrible habit,” he said. “You should always have coffee before checking your in-box.”
“This is important, honey,” she whispered. “I need to see what’s happening with the contest.”
Charlene was the head of public relations for Canadian Jet. Yesterday, with the help of the company’s PR
firm, Wrigley & Walters, the airline had launched its first Instagram contest: The person who posted the
most creative photo or Reel using the hashtag #CanJetLuxury would win two round-trip tickets to any of
the company’s destinations.
For Charlene, who had led the airline’s communications for 15 years, this campaign was critical. Six
months before, a third of Canadian Jet’s fleet had been grounded for a week owing to some engine safety
concerns, causing a slew of cancellations and delays. There had also been some negative press about the
airline’s approach to labor relations following a threatened strike by the ground crews. The team at
Wrigley & Walters had designed the campaign to restore Canadian Jet’s image as a preferred carrier.
“Shoot. This isn’t good,” Charlene said as she scrolled through the hashtag feed.
“What? It’s not catching on?” James asked groggily.
She showed him her screen, which was filled with sarcastic images: A photo of a grounded plane with the
caption: ‘Getting to my destination without the engine catching fire #CanJetLuxury’; a grainy video of a
crowded terminal: ‘Being stranded 3,000 miles from my family for two days straight #CanJetLuxury’; a
graphic of a protest line: ‘#CanJetLuxury is getting away with not paying employees fairly.’
“Ouch,” James said.
This is completely backfiring, Charlene thought as she got out of bed.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I need to call Jerry.”
7:30 AM
Jerry Schneider, Canadian Jet’s CEO, was tapping his fingers on his desk while he and Charlene waited for
the others to arrive. He hadn’t said much yet, but Charlene could tell that he was feeling the stress, too.
Tim Powell, Charlene’s director of social media, showed up with Andrea Kemp, the company’s account
manager from Wrigley & Walters. Both looked flustered.
“Sorry,” Tim said. “We had trouble getting Andrea’s pass.”
Andrea shook Jerry’s hand and started speaking before she sat down.
1
,“OK, so we knew this was a risk going in, right? People love to complain on the internet, especially when
they can essentially hide behind burner accounts like this.” Charlene knew Andrea’s fast talking wasn’t a
sign of nerves. She was the sort of person who was energized by a crisis. And she was right—throughout
the planning process, she’d reminded Charlene and her team that critics could use social media
campaigns like this one to bash the company. JPMorgan Chase had been a victim of hashtag backlash
after launching a Twitter Q&A, she had told them, and she had sent around a Forbes.com article about
how one of McDonald’s campaigns had resulted in a “bashtag.” She reminded them now of those cases.
“Knowing we’re in good company isn’t much comfort,” Jerry said. He asked Tim for an update.
“The posts are still coming in: 200 more photos with the CanJetLuxury hashtag since 6:00 AM. The
majority are fine—good, even—but there are some doozies.”
Jerry rolled his eyes. “I don’t even want to see any more.”
“And we’re going viral, which isn’t great, given the circumstances,” said Tim.
“How do we stop hitting the Explore page?” Jerry asked. The CEO was three decades removed from the
millennials, and although he did his best to keep up with social media, he wasn’t as savvy as Tim or
Charlene.
“If you cancel, you may alienate the people who sent in genuine entries.”
“We could change the contest, change the hashtag,” Tim suggested. “Other companies have done that.”
“And it’s worked,” Andrea noted. “By focusing people on a new hashtag or a fresh photo challenge, you
draw attention away from the one that was causing problems, and people are less inclined to post their
own witty insults. It could take a few days for the old hashtag feed to clear out, though.”
“So we could save the contest and let this whole mess blow over?” Jerry asked.
“Or we could just end the contest altogether,” Charlene offered.
“Yes, you might remember that’s what JPMorgan did on Twitter,” Andrea said. “When people hijacked the
hashtag to tweet about ‘capitalist pigs,’ they canceled the Q&A.”
“And they came off looking like the arrogant jerks everyone was claiming them to be,” Tim said.
Andrea nodded. “Let’s not jump the gun here. Most of these posts are positive. They show some lovely
images of customers’ experiences with Canadian Jet. If you cancel, you may alienate the people who sent
in genuine entries and are hoping for those round-trip tickets. It may be better to ignore the bashes and
focus on the good publicity you’re getting.”
“And when the press starts calling?” Charlene asked. She worried it was just a matter of time before she
would have to start fielding questions.
“You take the high road and say how pleased you are with the positive responses,” Andrea suggested.
“So far I’m not loving any of these options,” Jerry said.
Tim cleared his throat. “We could apologize. It’s worked for us in the past.” Three years back, one of the
operations VPs had come up with the idea to make buttons with “We’re sorry” in big black letters and
have flight attendants, pilots, and airport staff wear them whenever a flight was delayed or canceled,
even if it wasn’t the airline’s fault. Customer response to the tactic had been overwhelmingly positive.
The buttons had even helped win the airline an industry customer service award.
“But what exactly are you apologizing for here?” Andrea asked. “You just launched a contest. You didn’t
exploit political events like Kenneth Cole did or pull a Home Depot and send out a picture that people
2
,thought was racist. It makes sense that those companies said they were sorry, but you haven’t done
anything wrong.”
“That’s not what these people think,” Charlene said, pointing to her iPad. She showed them a few of the
latest Reels: a video of an empty aisle ‘Arriving a day late to your daughter’s wedding #CanJetLuxury’, a
photo of a worker ‘Screwing your workforce #CanJetLuxury.’
“Enough,” groaned Jerry, holding his head in his hands. The room was silent.
“I’m willing to take a stab at an apology,” Charlene said. “I’m not sure exactly what it’s going to say, but
give me an hour.”
8:30 AM
Charlene stared at the blank Word document on her screen. She typed: ON BEHALF OF CANADIAN JET, I’D
LIKE TO APOLOGIZE FOR THE FEELINGS THAT THIS CONTEST BROUGHT UP. She hit Delete. WE AT
CANADIAN JET ARE SORRY FOR DISAPPOINTING OUR CUSTOMERS. WE’RE COMMITTED TO— “That doesn’t
work, either,” she said out loud to her computer, pressing the backspace key. She tried a more direct
approach: WE’RE SORRY THAT OUR PLANES SOMETIMES BREAK, THAT YOU THINK WE TREAT OUR
EMPLOYEES UNFAIRLY, AND THAT YOU DON’T LIKE OUR CONTEST.
Her assistant poked her head in the door. “I’ve got Carrie Schultz on the line.” This ought to be fun,
Charlene thought as she picked up the phone.
Carrie, a blogger for PR News, explained that she was working on a piece about social media gaffes and
wondered if Charlene wanted to comment on the crisis in progress.
“I wouldn’t call it a ‘crisis.’ A handful of people poking fun at your business doesn’t constitute a crisis.”
“Are you willing to explain on the record why you’re ignoring the responses? You keep posting on
Instagram as if everything is going smoothly.”
Charlene quickly pulled up the airline’s Instagram and saw that a post had gone out at 8:00 AM: “Keep
the responses coming. At this rate, it’s going to take years to judge this contest!” She put her phone on
mute and yelled to her assistant to get Tim.
She could hear him running down the hallway. He looked ashen reading the post on her screen. She
pointed to the receiver and mouthed, “Carrie Schultz.”
She took the phone off mute. “We’re not ready to comment just yet, Carrie.”
“You’d better get ready,” she responded. “You’re appearing on everyone's feed, you know.”
9:00 AM
“Never mind arrogant. We look completely tone-deaf at this point,” said Jerry, his face red.
Tim was about to say something when Andrea cut in. “I’m sorry. This is our agency’s fault. We prepared
the posts yesterday and scheduled them to go out throughout the day. We were trying to save some
time.”
“Jerry, we’ve turned off the automatic posts,” Charlene assured him. “But still—we’ve got to figure out
what we’re doing. And fast.”
“What about the apology?” Tim asked.
“Andrea was right,” Charlene sighed. “It’s hard to know exactly what we’re apologizing for. The only thing
I can think to say is, ‘Sorry we’ve disappointed you in various ways over the past 10 years.’”
3
, “What’s wrong with that?” Tim asked. Charlene looked over at him to see if he was joking. He wasn’t
smiling.
“We look like chumps, that’s what,” Jerry said, his voice rising.
“So, are we pulling it?” Tim asked. They all looked at Jerry.
“What else have we got for this year?”
“This is our biggest social media campaign,” Charlene replied. “We’ve planned a few other things, but
nothing on this scale.” She tried not to look at Andrea. Her agency was as much on the line as Canadian
Jet.
“This is not a lost cause,” Andrea said, still utterly composed. “It’s been less than 24 hours. I’m telling
you, this thing may die down as quickly as it heated up.”
“I understand why you want to save this, Andrea. But we need to be cautious here,” Charlene said.
“Canadian Jet can’t suffer another PR problem.”
Jerry sat down heavily in his chair. “I know we normally take your firm’s advice on these things, Andrea.
You’re the experts here, but you’re also the ones who got us into this mess.” He turned to Charlene. “As
our spokesperson, I’d like you to make the call.”
CANADIAN JET
Canadian airline company
o Ex. Brussels Airlines
Wants to restore its image as a ‘preferred carrier’
o They want to become the first choice
CHARACTERS
CEO: Jerry Schneider
Head of PR: Charlene Thompson
Director of social media: Tim Powell
Account manager from Wringley & Walters: Andrea Kemp
CANADIAN JET’S PR CHALLENGES
Engine safety concerns: Delays and cancellations
o Huge deal: People don’t trust you anymore
Negative press on airline’s approach to labor relations
LAUNCHING THE #CANJETLUXURY CONTEST
The day before: Launch of CanJet’s first Instagram contest
Challenge: To post the most creative photo or reel using the hashtag #CanJetLuxury on Instagram
Prize: Two round-trip tickets to any of CanJet’s destinations
THE BACKLASH AGAINST CANADIAN JET
= A strong negative reaction from many people. It happens when people are angry or upset about
something and publicly show their criticism.
A photo of a grounded plane:
o ‘Getting to my destination without the engine catching fire #CanJetLuxury’
4
