In 2015, SeaWorld set out a twitter campaign to restore its image after the 2013 release of Blackfish painted them as an “abusement” park which cages up whales to perform tricks. #AskSeaWorld was aimed to answer questions about whale care.
They weren’t ready for the overflow of negative responses from tweeters and activists that followed.
In fact, they were so unprepared that they reacted by dismissing the criticism as bots and trolls, and even blocked users from twitter.
This campaign was SeaWorld’s attempt to calm down the backlash and gain back the public’s trust, which they failed on so many levels. Here’s what they did wrong.
Lack of appropriate crisis evaluation.
SeaWorld should have better evaluated their situation. From a SCCT (Coombs, 2007) perspective, they could have better assessed the reputational threat of Blackfish’s release (which they had plenty of time to do, it came out 2 years before the twitter campaign!). It works like this: the stronger the internal control, the higher the attribution of responsibility, the higher the reputational threat. Seaworld clearly had a strong responsibility: they were being blamed for the unethical treatment of their animals. This means their response strategy should have been set for the highest reputational threat. But instead of a rebuild strategy (answering criticism with a clear disclosure of their practices, a plan of action for a more ethical placement of their wales LIKE THEY WERE ASKED), they went for the denial tactic (blankly dismissing criticism as trolls, refuting charges, blocking users). No wonder their campaign failed and led to fewer attendance and revenue.
The campaign as self-serving rather than an ethical resolution.
Pratt (1994) makes a relevant point when it comes to ethics in PR: corporate behaviour and crisis management needs to be proactive instead of reactive. There is a lack of ethical conduct when communication is aimed at benefitting self-corporate interest instead of public interest. SeaWorld were clearly not ready to come clean to the public when setting out the #AskSeaWorld campaign. They just wanted to save their ass from the criticism. The campaign was a reaction to the backlash, not a proactive resolution to better themselves for the good of all. The fact that this campaign was set out so late after the crisis, after requests had already been made for action, underlined their hypocrisy. As a result, they just got more backlash, what’s more on Twitter for all to see, where their reputation leaked further down the drain.
Opportunities missed for opening up dialogue.
Not only was the timing of this campaign miscalculated, but reaction to the hashtag hacking became a missed chance to open up a dialogue with influential stakeholders, which they instead turned into enemies. Activists are impactful gatekeepers that organisations should deal with if they are to maintain legitimacy. They are part of the wider range of stakeholders organisations need to maintain relationships of trust. Veil, Buehner & Palenchar (2011) point out two relevant crisis recommendations which could have helped SeaWorld avoid their PR disaster. First, organisations in crisis need to assure the public that they are not shying away from the discussion. Setting out a hashtag campaign to address issues to then run away from them isn’t really opening up a discussion. Second, they should communicate with compassion, concern and empathy, and recognise public emotions as legitimate to allow an open exchange which humanises the crisis response. Calling the public “trolls” and blocking them on social media is hardly compassionate I think!
Christine Schneider: Christine is a Master student in Corporate Communications and University of Amsterdam. She took interest in corporations after studying communication and media for her bachelor’s at Brunel university in London. She now aims to become a Public Relations practitioner or consultant.
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