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Friday, November 28, 2014

Adventures In Marketing

Let's say you're Malaysian Airlines. You're the subject of constant scrutiny and anger every day that the plane of yours that went down... somewhere or other... all the way back in March remains unfound, which is bogged down right now in squabbling over theories, and the odds are at worst pretty fair that it in fact never will be found. You have a second plane that was shot down by Russians mid-Ukranian invasion in July. That's more on the Russians than it is on you, but it still doesn't exactly look good. You are, at this moment, undoubtedly the least-trusted airline on the planet.

Let us also say you are part of Malaysian Airlines' marketing department. You are tasked with figuring out how in the world you are going to get people back on your airplanes that have been frightened into the arms of your competitors. It's getting to be the late stages of the year, and even if you're Muslim and don't observe Christmas, the close of the year is still a big marketing opportunity. Which of the following two things do you tweet?

A) "Want to go somewhere, but don't know where? Our Year-End Specials might just help!"
B) Literally anything other than A short of expressing admiration for the Unabomber.

Needless to say, the selection here was A. Shockingly, that didn't work too well. (The tweet was deleted some hours later. I do not suspect the person that sent it will be employed very much longer.)

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