When a Social Media Response Creates a Crisis

Two of my worlds have collided in the last few days and I’ve been waiting to see if the issue would resolve and, well, it got worse.

For context, I deal with PR and crisis comms and 5 years ago was diagnosed with coeliac disease.

Here’s what happened - Sophia headed to the airport for a flight and wanted breakfast, she had been to almost every shop and asked if they had coeliac safe food - the response was no. So she made a video saying “Hey Sydney airport, we need to talk. I make this video every six months - sort out your gluten free options”

What makes this interesting from a crisis comms pov is that there were multiple opportunities to stop this escalating. They could have chosen not to respond. They could have apologised. They could have deleted the post.

But as part of your comms, PR, social media plan, would one of your options EVER be “Take the complainants voice, use it as a voiceover to show all the gluten free options at the airport and make her look really stupid”?

That’s what Sydney Airport did.

The issue is they only had 7 options across 3 terminals, 6 were burgers or sushi and the other was the smoothie bowl which they said had gluten free granola (it wasn’t). Sophia’s point was - this isn’t a choice, and I’d just really like a piece of toast for breakfast at 6am. It’s not an unreasonable request.

Does it get better? No.

The airport doubled down by liking comments that criticised her stance. And when someone made a reasonable comment, Sydney Airport sniped back.

So what were Sydney Airport thinking?

Whatever happened internally, the problem is the same: someone made a public response without properly considering the reputational risk. Your social media isn't separate from your PR. It's a public facing comms channel, and every response represents the organisation. And brands should check whether they are ridiculing a customer before posting - because when coeliac is such a severe condition to have, it’s not funny to feel unsafe everywhere. And in this day and age, large organisations like an AIRPORT should understand the impact this can have.

This wasn't a crisis that suddenly appeared. It was created by the organisation's response to a completely manageable complaint. A public response should be treated as a legal and brand risk exercise - not just content.

So what should they do now?

Remove - it’s rare I tell organisations to delete posts but in this case, leaving it up is a bad idea.
Apologise - say you’re educating your team, you’re looking at adding more options, and send Sophia a message apologising for mocking her.
Reach out - it’s going to take a lot to rebuild trust here, so reach out to some GF influencers and invite them to see what you do have to offer (if it’s as good as you reckon) and showcase you in a positive light.
Learn and do better - You’re a big brand. Review your approvals process. You should have consultants who can see a crisis coming before it happens. And this one had a neon sign.

There's more but you get my drift...