Sunshine Matters

VISIT FLORIDA was invited to speak on our crisis management response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill at last week’s Destination Marketing Association International Annual Convention. The DMAI show, now in its 97th year, drew more than 1,000 attendees from 10 countries representing over 700 DMO professionals, educators, students, and industry partners from nearly 275 destinations.

For our breakout session, VISIT FLORIDA’s Chief Marketing Officer Will Seccombe and I presented “10 Lessons in Crisis Communication.” As part of our Top 10 list, we gave details on how VISIT FLORIDA was able to remain a trusted resource for Florida’s visitors during and after the oil spill by establishing a credible, transparent information platform. We also explained VISIT FLORIDA’s aggressive proactive marketing efforts to drive visitation in the face of the crisis, and how we advocated for Florida’s tourism industry at the state and national levels.

In a nutshell, here are our Top 10 Oil Spill Lessons Learned that you can apply to your own crisis planning:

Transparency – In a crisis, it’s vital to maintain your branding and reputation.  For us, being open, honest and fully transparent in all our communications was not only the right thing to do, but proved to be a service to both the tourism industry and consumers by helping alleviate misinformation.  Engaging with the industry and having them embrace this concept was key to providing a consistently transparent level of communication with our visitors.

Communicate – At the very outset of a crisis, it’s important to identify your audiences and work with them to ensure you have a “seat at the table” as communications decisions are being made.  While this seems obvious, it proved to be a challenge for us because we were so used to managing the message ourselves and now we needed to act as part of a larger emergency response team with a host of differing responsibilities.  We learned quickly that there were often more questions than answers, but you must still share what you do know as soon as possible.

Crisis is Hyper-Local – While VISIT FLORIDA is responsible for providing tourism marketing for the entire state, this crisis impacted nearly every destination differently and it became clear that individual areas needed to share their story at a hyper-local level.  To be useful and enact change, information has to be specific and provide an accurate scale for the event so consumers can put it in the proper perspective for themselves.

Face for Radio – Crises are inherently visual and, with today’s 24-hour TV news cycle and the abundance of social media coverage, your audience is sure to be inundated with lasting images that can be very difficult to overcome.  In the case of the oil spill, we attempted to counter balance the more sensational visuals of gushing oil and soiled pelicans with accurate images of the current conditions in Florida.  No amount of interviews with the media to tell your side of the story will ever be enough, so finding a way to match their level of visual information with your own is key.

Research – Determining your marketing response to a crisis needs to be rooted in research-driven information.   It’s imperative to go into the marketplace early to establish a baseline so you can respond based on actual consumer perceptions.  If the crisis lasts for several months or longer, commission multiple waves of studies in order to adapt your marketing responses as the situation evolves.

Florida Live – In order to counter sensational news coverage, incorporate hyper-local information and be transparent during a crisis, it’s important to create a visual resource for consumers that they can easily find and trust.  One week into the oil spill, we created the Florida Live social media platform.  From the outset, it included date-stamped photos taken by people in Florida, as well as links to live webcams and Twitter feeds.  Over time, we added daily videos, blog posts and fishing reports so potential visitors could see for themselves what was really going on in Florida.  Florida Live, now a permanent and highly popular feature of our website, was initially developed in just a few days.  The quick turnaround time was only possible because the content was simply a bundling of existing local resources that VISIT FLORIDA then promoted to consumers.  This is an example of how there are often many amazing assets already available to us if we are open to creative ideas about how best to leverage them.

Get the Word Out – Of course, in a crisis you want to utilize traditional advertising and marketing efforts to share your message.  However, we found that the most powerful tool was word of mouth information from locals.  We used our in-state advocacy platform Share a Little Sunshine and The Great VISIT FLORIDA Beach Walk as ways to engage Florida citizens in becoming active participants in sharing real-time messaging with consumers.  It’s important to think outside the conventional modes of communication and create advocates who will help get the word out for you.

Manage Intensity – Unlike a hurricane which comes and goes quickly and which have occurred with enough frequency over the years that  Florida tourism businesses are confident with how to respond and recover, the oil spill was a crisis of uncertainty that put many people in an understandably defensive and protective posture.  Given this mentality, it was a challenge to strike a balance between publicly acknowledging that livelihoods were at stake and continuing to market the state as a desirable tourist destination.  Whatever the crisis, prepare to be scrutinized, but know that if you do the right things for the right reasons, it will all work out.

Partnerships – Leveraging new and existing partnerships with organizations who match your goals is often key to helping get your message out during a crisis.  For example, VISIT FLORIDA was lucky to be able to work with groups like the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Volunteer Florida to extend our reach and organize efforts that would not have been possible otherwise.  Out of crisis often come silver linings – our opportunity to work with these partners was a great asset during the crisis and has proven to be even more invaluable since.  Actively seeking out relationships with both traditional and non-traditional associates either before a crisis occurs or in the midst as you are thrown together, can result in lasting partnerships that offer new resources to all concerned.

Document – Crises move at 1,000 miles an hour, but it’s critical to take the time to document your efforts along the way. Not only will it provide a way to accurately assess your effectiveness, but you’ll be amazed when you look back after the crisis is passed and see all the good work that was done.

To view a timeline of VISIT FLORIDA’s oil spill crisis response efforts, please click here.