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Betcha’ thought that the JetBlue flap was “sooo yesterday,” but, in some of the circles in which I run, it’s still being picked-apart for the lessons-learned.

One of the more interesting notes I’ve received came from David Appelbaum at BigFix (a client, whom I’ve praised before)…

“JetBlue is the classic example of an ‘integrated marketing company,’ trying to use social media as an integrated touch point and NOT as an end in and of itself. Think about it – JetBlue has no message diversity: all of their messages were focused on how they’re a different airline – they’re ‘nice’  - and all of these messages were closely integrated and self-referencing. They did it extraordinarily well – great look & feel, and generally they were able to walk the talk.

“BUT – and here’s the money shot – they had all their eggs in that 1 basket. Everything! There was no other knowledge, relationship, or awareness of JetBlue outside of that one message – ‘we’re different and we’re nice.’  When that turns out to be proven false, you get an inverse negative reaction – all that goodwill goes bad.  ‘You’re not different at all – you suck like the rest of them but you made me believe that you were different – so I hate you more now.’  Context and authenticity are the key. People absorb and retain messages if they feel they’re authentic and are aligned with how they consume media.”

One of the lines from David that most intrigued me was that last one: “People absorb and retain messages if they feel they’re authentic and are aligned with how they consume media.” 

If you agree, it follows, then, (simplistically) that a blogophile will be keen to watch what JetBlue does in the blogosphere; a “typical” consumer may be more engaged by advertisements online and in traditional media (without a thought to what moves JetBlue makes in the blogs); a teen may be engaged by a MySpace– or YouTube-related campaign.  Maybe JetBlue could engage hardcore travelbugs by creating “Travel”-themed social networks for different age/interest groups (i.e., via Ning)?  The trick, I think, is to have a consistent “voice” that can support multiple “channels” of conversation. 

Let’s pretend JetBlue embraced ALL of the ideas in the paragraph above.  Re-play a similar crisis, a year from today:

• The corporate blog would be updated every 2 hours.  They might even set-up a “crisis blog” dedicated to the issues.
• An internal comms person would monitor T’rati and respond as-appropriate to bloggers’ musings thoughout the crisis, answering questions and/or directing readers to the appropriate, official information sources.
• The (soon-to-be-requisite??) YouTube apology would be up within hours, not a week later.  This time, it might be updated once per day, either by the CEO or an official spokesperson (witness the rise of the virtual press conference!)
• A JetBlue MySpace page allows people to post messages of support to friends & family affected by the travel snafus.  JetBlue could monitor these posts and promise to deliver messages from the flight crew to the passengers, either quietly or via the P.A.  (Not that cellphones wouldn’t be working, but this might make the waiting-on-the-runway more entertaining and “connected” to the outside world.)
• Vloggers and bloggers stuck on planes and in airline terminals are invited to post vids and pics to a (moderated) JetBlue-branded MySpace page, via their cameraphones.  Some of this would be ugly, but, it could be moderated (and responded to) and, such an open approach might also allow people to let off steam constructively.
• All official information on latest-developments is posted regularly on the blog, front-and-center on the JetBlue site, and is also pumped through its Social Media channels: everything is updated at the same time with the same info.  RSS feeds do some of this work.
• An SEO campaign on Google ensures that anyone doing a search on JetBlue gets an instant link to official news sources.

I’m just making this up, but, compare this “kaleidoscopic frenzy of transparency” to how the flap was actually handled last month. 

Which approach would you prefer?