Impact Image PRNorthwest Airlines

Crisis Management Plan

Hypothetical Client Scenario and Strategy

April 14, 2009

SPCM 481 – Cases and Campaigns

Dr. Bardhan

Bill Cozzie, Ryan Ederer, Craig Ramsey, Dominique Wash

In 1927, Northwest Airways began their first flights holding passengers.

Since then, they have changed their name to Northwest airlines and has

operated continuously under one name longer than any other U.S. airline.

The fifth largest airline in the world and was the first to ban smoking on its

flights.

Each year it operates 1,500 flights to more than 1,000 destinations

worldwide. These destinations include 120 countries on 6 continents

transporting over 52 million passengers a year.

“Red-Tail” Logo recognized globally

Bridged the technological gap by:

Allowing E-ticketing passengers to check-in and obtain boarding passes in as little

as 30 seconds.

Allowing customers to receive tickets and notifications via email.

Ensures the safety of children flying alone, and offers a guarantee on

unaccompanied children on flights around the world.

Relax, It’s not that bad!

The story reaches many homes, but is not a regular household

discussion or concern across the United States

Biggest problem is Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse

They have several different chapters across the nation

They have editorials submitted to newspapers 15 major cities

nationwide, but other than that, the news trail ends.

Daytime talk shows pick up story

Includes two very popular shows, Oprah and Ellen.

Ultimately, The story stems to only about 75% of consumers who

are aware of the situation as well as asking more questions, but

besides MAMA making a big deal about it, no sales have been

affected heavily.

Problems:

Controlling MAMA and the audiences they reach.

Daytime talk show hosts instigating negative attention.

News outlets making this information easily accessible.

Opportunities:

MAMA isn’t a large activist group and not well-known.

International regulatory organizations aren’t as concerned with the

use of the drug as U.S. organizations, making it easier to control

an International Media Crisis

Mom is interested in incentives potentially offered by Northwest to

compensate for the current situation.

Goals and Objectives:

Gain mother’s alliance.

Limit amount of international media attention.

Make audiences aware of MAMA’s lack of credibility.

Make audiences aware of the initiative Northwest has

taken towards the situation.

Firing of flight attendant.

Further investigation into the case.

Gaining mother’s alliance with incentives and/or compensation for

her troubles throughout this ordeal.

Financial Settlement

Free flights for immediate family for life.

Further medical and legal research reveal the drug is only of

concern to U.S. regulatory programs.

Easy to make it of little or no concern to International Media.

Publically question the credibility of MAMA

Small size

Not affiliated with any other national organizations.

Has known to be radical in the past.

Publically terminate Flight Attendant

Make consumers and the public aware of the termination.

Make public aware that Northwest does not condone that sort of

behavior whatsoever and the investigation is on-going.

Evaluating mother and her reactions

Face-to-face interview.

Following her reactions and interviews through the media.

Hiring media watchdog group to monitor International

media.

Evaluating primary data received will help us analyze the

threat, or lack of, an international media crisis.

Random surveys to NWA Customers on the termination of

the flight attendant as well as their overall awareness and

attitude about the situation.

Food and Drug Administration decide to examine situation further and publically announce their investigation. They find evidence that consumption of antidepressants can lead to a rare

but serious lung disorder called: persistent pulmonary hypertension.

FAA holds national news conference involving all major media outlets.Media questions Northwest and their flight attendants demanding answers

if drugging of infants occurred on regular basis.

Media also questions how Northwest is dealing with their delinquent employee.

This scenario results in severely negative media attention as well as: Suspension from major travel seasons

Severe loss in ticket sales

Re-evaluation of hiring process and training of Northwest employees by FAA.

International and national scrutiny.

Scenario causes an outrageous uproar amongst travelers and parents worldwide thus resulting in sever damage done to the reputation and image of Northwest Airlines

Northwest needs to separate themselves from the

flight attendant who committed the alleged crime.

This is crucial because we need to isolate the incident to

one person and stray away from NWA’s reputation

We plan on doing this by:

Publically terminating flight attendant

Inform public that NWA doesn’t support or condone this

behavior

Create a public investigation by NWA looking into several

aspects of the incident including hiring process and

evaluation and flight attendant supervision.

Following the implementation of our goals and

objectives, our team hopes to turn public image by

creating positive partnerships to help diminish these

incidents. Possible partnerships include:

Teaming up with the FDA researching prescription drugs

with infants specifically designed for flights.

Joining with the FAA developing government regulated

training programs for professional flight attendants

A Large donation from NWA to a hospital prenatal

wing/facility.

Keep it simple and straightforward:Hold a press conference immediately to announce the flight

attendant has been terminated and investigations are on-going.

This is a one-time, isolated incident that will never happen again.

Deeply regret this unfortunate situation by reaching out to mother publically, apologizing and claiming full responsibility.

Approach the FAA and propose joint partnership in launching mandatory training process for flight attendants.

Promote campaign world-wide through major news corporations to reach many different publics.

These will help eliminate this from ever happening again

Ultimately, we want the public to see that Northwest is taking a proactive approach to the situation and will do whatever it takes to make sure this sort of problem doesn’t happen again.

After implementing the proposed strategy, we plan on evaluating the campaign by:Analyzing and evaluating the financial return of NWA.

Assist in removal of travel season suspensions and return to or near the average ticket sales of previous fiscal year.

Poll major news stations, especially ones that were heavily included and interested in the situation.Detect the number of positive media that NWA has received following

the implementation of the FAA partnership

Ideally we would like to have turned 75% of nationwide media into positive attention, rather than negative and also eliminate connection of flight attendant and NWA.

Conduct survey to random sample of the general public about NWAWill include several different aspects to be polled by consumers and

the public which will be analyzed by our firm to give us a strong sense of public opinion

Will help us determine if strategy was successful or unsuccessful.

Situations happen and Impact Image PR understands this.

Regardless of each scenario given, Impact Image PR is

confident that we can control this crisis. We are confident

that we can completely rebuild the image of Northwest

Airlines and allow them to be a successful, reputable and

prominent leader in the aviation industry.

Impact Image PR