ANALYSIS: Plane Inconvenient - A silver lining
01 June 2010, B2B Marketing
Iceland's volcanic ash cloud has created both huge repercussions and exciting opportunities for brands at different ends of the B2B spectrum, as Claire Weeks finds out
When the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano erupted back in April, few could have predicted that it would spark a trail of travel chaos as complex as the pronunciation of its name. Yet weeks after the initial plume of ash drifted into Northern European skies, flights are still being disrupted and headlines peppered with news of airlines suffering significant profit losses because of the crisis.
Whilst tales involving disappointed holiday-makers, stranded celebrities and ruined wedding parties made for great tabloid fodder at the height of the situation, there have also been very serious – if lesser reported – implications for business travelers. Disruption to conferences, canceled meetings and not to mention the non-refundable travel costs faced by many, will all have contributed to the already estimated cost of more than £2.15 billion to European businesses so far.
For some brands that serve the business community, the repercussions of the crisis have been huge – but for others it has proven to be a chance to flourish. Whilst business airlines, already beaten down by the recession, massive rises in fuel costs and strikes have obviously not welcomed such a large puff of smoke clouding their brand images, other B2B brands have quite literally been touched by the hand of God, with web conferencing and virtual events companies reporting healthy hikes in customer numbers as a result of the affair.
A silver lining
On the flipside of all of this, there is a whole other sector of B2B organisations that profited well from the presence of the ash cloud. Since the volcanic crisis, virtual events company On24 has seen a 30 per cent increase in European attendance at virtual events. Virtual working and meeting companies have also reported big increases in usage. In a press release dated 20 April, Citrix Online reported a “significant increase” in the adoption of online collaboration technologies by business users – with Andrew Millard, director of marketing and e-commerce, estimating that use of its services initially “doubled” because of the ash cloud situation. When the story was picked up by Bloomberg and the Irish Times amongst others, this only served to increase interest in the brand even more.
Not that Citrix Online is any stranger to leveraging positive publicity from similar (if slightly less dramatic) situations. When the deep freeze took hold earlier this year Citrix, alongside YouGov, quickly conducted a sweep poll of senior decision makers to highlight the fact that many were unprepared for the snow, and whipped the results into a press release, thus providing a hook into which the 'here we are to help' message could be woven. Similarly, during the London tube strikes last summer, it quickly issued another press release bearing the top-line '5.2 million hours wasted by the strike'.
“These are moments where our products become more relevant, and whilst we don't want to be seen as chasing ambulances, they are important times for us to communicate to businesses that there is an alternative way,” says Millard.
It is a similar story over at conference calling company Powwownow. It reported a 30 per cent increase in the number of registered users in the four days directly after Eyjafjallajoekul erupted (and a 60 per cent increase during the deep freeze). When the volcano first erupted, Powwownow was quick to send out an email communication to its 40,000 registered UK and European users. It also used its three Twitter feeds to let people know it was there as an alternative to face-to-face meetings and reviewed its Google analytics strategy to ensure that it was listed first for key search terms.
For Andy Pearce, Powwownow's CEO, this activity is just part of an overall aim by the brand to position itself as an alternative to air travel, and perhaps the latest coup in an ongoing 'feud' that has been rumbling for some time between Powwownow and British Airways and Flybe. Earlier this year, when the airlines launched a print campaign urging that 'Conference calls don't win business', Powwownow responded with a 'vandalised' version of the ad.
“We felt that [the airlines] were being socially irresponsible and so that's why we went to war with them, and we hope to take this further and to push it quite hard,” says Pearce, who adds that with regards to the forthcoming British Airways strikes it has “campaigns designed to run at that stage”.
When asked about Flybe's stance on the matter, Hobday declined to comment.
An act of God
“Of course, people won't stop getting on planes as a result of what's happened,” says Pearce, “but I believe that ultimately, people might start to think twice about it, because nobody wants to be stranded because of a strike or similar situation.”
Pearce goes on to offer some PR advice to the airline companies, “I think it was a very tough thing for them to have dealt with and they were put in a difficult position. However, I think they could have leveraged more pressure on the Government if they really did believe it was safe to fly, which [in turn] could have led to more positive PR.
“I know we are dealing with an act of God – but nobody appears to have written a manual on how we deal with an act of God that means that planes can't fly.”
With ongoing eruptions from Eyjafjallajoekull almost certain, and fears that it may trigger an even bigger eruption from nearby Mount Katla, Pearce might just have identified a gaping hole in the crisis comms landscape.
