I once read that the most successful people are those that are able to turn a crisis into an opportunity. This can be applied to one’s business, or even to one’s personal life!
I try to always think how I can turn a crisis I’m facing into an opportunity and I can tell you it’s not always the easiest thing to do. But today I present to you a company that managed to do this successfully!
The company in question is Scoot. For my non-Singaporean readers who aren’t aware, Scoot is a relatively new budget airline company trying to break into an already very crowded and competitive budget airline market.
The other party in today’s story is 9GAG Singapore; a Singaporean version of the popular 9GAG.
This is a brief outline of what happened:
1) North Korean announces that they will be attacking South Korea
2) Scoot announces new cheap ticket prices to Seoul (South Korea) – Crisis to Opportunity Case 1
3) 9GAG Singapore posts a meme about it to its 119,335 Facebook followers stating that Scoot is sending people to their death (rephrased and interpreted)
4) Scoot replies with a level headed, composed and well thought out statement and even decided to give the 9GAG Singapore admin a free ticket from Seoul to Singapore. In addition they utilized 9Gag Singapore’s large reach to promote the selling of more tickets to Seoul by asking people to state reasons why they should also receive free tickets from Scoot – Crisis to Opportunity Case 2
I’m not sure if any of you are as impressed as I am but personally when I saw this I was so proud of Scoot for coming up with such a great ‘retort’!
If they had just left it as it is, the general impression of Scoot would have remained a negative one and this might affect the brand image in the long run.
But by doing what they did, it showed the light hearted and even fun side of Scoot which brings about positive associations with the company. This would definitely be good for their branding, and heck, it might even make more people want to apply to work in Scoot!
And in this brief encounter, I am sensing some similarities between Scoot and the famous tongue-in-cheek Virgin brand; which is a really good direction to head in! Even their description about themselves on their website is congruent with their actions; and also similar to Virgin – “We’re an airline for the young, the young-at-heart and the value seeking.”
So kudos to Scoot for their outstanding work over the long Easter weekend!
A few things I have learned:
1) In this age of social media, don’t just monitor what your competitors say about you, monitor what everyone says about you
2) Always keep calm and composed in business (and life) when faced with adversity or crises.
3) Bad press is also good press (if you’re able to work your way around it!)
(Have something to add on? Just leave a comment and I’ll be happy to read it! Thanks!)
StartupCHEW 