Becoming a hero to disgruntled employees across the globe, JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater’s dramatic resignation has sparked a flurry of chatter around the power of PR and the effectiveness of crisis communications (and of course, how to become an overnight celebrity).
Steven Slater, being the savvy business man that he is, has hired high-profile publicist Howard Bragman to represent him. Once those pesky criminal charges are dealt with, Howard intends to help extend Slater’s 15 minutes of fame (they’re entertaining reality show offers and potential book deals). Interestingly, while Slater has only had PR representation for less than 24 hours now and his former employer has an entire team working to keep its brand reputation crystal clean, Slater has been coming out on top in the blogosphere and Twitter-world.
Of course, being a working-class hero is great and big businesses have a harder time of looking like the good guys, but the fact that Slater seriously broke the law doesn’t seem to be affecting his public persona one iota…and hiring a top publicist is only going to help turn things in his favor.
JetBlue’s most recent response to the image issue is quite interesting as well. Back by popular demand, they have reintroduced the “all you can jet” promotion after the resounding success of last year’s promotion. However, is this enough to help them regain public favor or will consumers believe the angry spewings of a disgruntled employee? Likely both issues will subside and things will return to status quo in weeks, but it’s an intriguing case study in the powers of spin.
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