The hallmark of crises that can destroy a brand
In some of the many media interviews I’ve done over the last two and a half weeks on the Optus 000 failure, I’ve been asked if this the worst type of crisis a business could face.
Crises come in many forms and while this isn’t the worst I’ve seen, it’s certainly right up there.
That’s because it ticks multiple boxes on the “unforgivability” scale, demonstrating a number of elements that make it harder for a brand to bounce back.
Loss of life – This one’s obvious; any situation where people lose their lives is at the most serious end of the crisis scale. The circumstances and context matter. In this case, based on what we’ve been told (and acknowledging much more will come out in investigations), Optus will have a difficult time moving the community past the tragic events that unfolded during the 000 outage.
Essence of the brand – We find it harder to forgive a business when the problem relates to the very core of the service it delivers. On its website, Optus’ stated focus is “creating a better more connected future for Australia. Parent company Singtel says in its annual report that it provides “core connectivity services through Optus.” Their reputation will suffer more because they failed to deliver on their central promise.
Reputation at the time of the crisis – It wasn’t pretty, even before the 000 outage. A squeaky-clean image won’t save a brand if it makes a big enough mistake, but a series of mis-steps over a period of years practically guarantees you’ll be labelled a company to avoid, for a long time to come. Optus has languished on the Roy Morgan list of Australia’s most distrusted brands for a while now. Just before this latest crisis it was showing signs of perception improvement – but we can expect that to reverse.
You caused it – The investigations will unravel the details, but in the meantime Optus and Singtel have both publicly said there was human error involved.
Initial response – How you behave in the minutes, hours and days after a crisis has a huge impact on how quickly you can rebuild a shattered reputation. We don’t know what went on inside the organisation but based on what we saw in the public domain, Optus certainly didn’t set themselves up for success. We’ll be watching the findings of the various investigations and studying this crisis well into the future.
There’s a lot for every business, organisation and leader to take away from this crisis. Let’s hope we all do better.
Some of my recent interviews on the 000 crisis:
2SM with Tim Webster: https://omny.fm/shows/tim-webster-for-breakfast/neryl-east-optus-credibility-as-a-company-02-10-25
2GB overnight with Mike Jeffreys: https://omny.fm/shows/overnights-with-mike-jeffreys/will-optus-ever-win-back-our-trust
Channel 9 Adelaide: https://vimeo.com/1121368858?share=copy#t=0
Perth Live with Oliver Peterson: https://omny.fm/shows/perth-live/examining-optuss-missteps-in-the-recent-outage-debacle
