Airline faces backlash for ‘tasteless’ naked campaign

In the week when the world was outraged at the iCloud hack that, quite literally, exposed many of the world’s biggest celebrities, Spirit Airlines attempted to jump on the topical band wagon and take advantage of the scandal. The American budget airline launched its ‘Home of the bare fare’ campaign with graphics showing a drawing of a naked woman next to the words ‘Our bare fare was hacked!’. The overwhelming response to the campaign on Twitter was a backlash against the airline, branding it tasteless and questioning who thought it a good idea to joke about such a violation of privacy.

In more airline campaign news, Malaysian Airlines has this week seen a backlash on social media thanks to their newly launched ‘My Ultimate Bucket List’ competition in Australia and New Zealand. The company has suffered two separate mid-air incidents in recent months onboard MH370 and MH17 resulting in the catastrophic loss of 527 lives. Last week the airline also announced it is cutting its workforce by 30 per cent with the loss of 6,000 jobs. The ill-thought out campaign has already been renamed by Malaysia Airlines although it is yet to be formally announced.

This week, Skift launched details of their latest report looking at social media customer service in the travel industry. As customer touch points with brands widen to social media platforms and mobile devices, companies need to be more aware of the requirement for real-time feedback when it comes to customer communications. For global brands, it’s important to grasp the fact that social media doesn’t sleep. More organisations are now looking at the best way to organise teams to cover social media channels 24 hours a day. As we move towards an even more connected world, companies will need to look at optimising big data to provide the best social media customer service they can. The full report can be purchased here.

Mariott Hotels are set to bring the world closer together, well in their hotels at least. In a collaboration with MIT Mobile Lab Experience Mariott hotels have created a prototype social network, Six Degreeswhich hopes to connect those staying in the hotel with other like-minded guests.  The social network uses data from LinkedIn to create each guest’s profile which includes their career and interests.  In each hotel lobby there are interactive tables which help those connected on the social network, to meet up. There is also a screen showing social events planned by the hotel. Are you ready to make a new connection?

1 September marked the centennial of the extinction of the passenger pigeon, driven to its demise by the advance of communication technology back in the day.  Coming full circle the New York Times published a thought-piece this week about how 100 years on, the communication technology developments which previously killed off the passenger pigeon, has evolved into social media which has become one of the leading forces in raising awareness about endangered species.

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