June 27, 2023
247: Under Pressure: OceanGate's Titanic Struggles with Media and Public Perception
The captivating story of the missing Titanic submersible and the PR crisis that ensued for OceanGate. We unravel the media coverage, public perception, and the different strategies employed by Ocean Gate, the US Coast Guard, and other agencies, as well as the roles of social media and notable figures like James Cameron in shaping the narrative. Learn how transparency, timely communication, and empathy were key components in managing this disaster.
We dive deep into the various media strategies used in crisis communication, analyzing how OceanGate and other organizations leveraged social media experts and the challenges they faced in releasing crucial information. We also discuss the involvement of brands like Boeing, University of Washington, Logitech, Blink 182, and The Simpsons in the story, and examine the impact of the press in the coverage. Plus, don't miss the incredible connection between the CEO's wife and the Titanic, her ancestors having been first-class passengers on the ill-fated ship!
Finally, we emphasize the importance of having an online platform dedicated to user-generated content, allowing communities to interact, ask questions, and engage with your audience. Listen in as we explore how such platforms serve viewers and listeners better, providing a unique opportunity for better engagement and insight. Join us for this insightful and gripping episode that not only explores the Titanic submersible disaster but also offers valuable lessons in public relations strategies and crisis management.
Topics covered in Episode 247 of Indestructible PR with Molly McPherson:
- Referring to James Cameron's interview and Cameron's anger towards CEO Stockton Rush
- Focus on money and wealth in ocean exploration
- Tragic ending to submersible 'Titan' used to see Titanic shipwreck
- Vessel had catastrophic implosion, killing all on board
- Tragic consequences of recent billionaire space launch
- Need for a crisis communication plan
- Speaker's community platform called Five
- Missing Titanic tourist immersible and PR crisis faced by OceanGate
- Public relations crucial for crisis management
- Coverage of the event and criticism of the media
- Example of good and bad media strategies during a crisis
Join Molly on Patreon for even deeper dives into celebrity PR strategies and exclusive live sessions!
Follow Molly for daily updates and more PR insights:
- TikTok: @mollybmcpherson
- Patreon: Patreon.com/mollymcpherson
- Connect with Molly: pillar.io/mollymcpherson
© 2024 The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson
Chapters
00:00 - The Missing Titanic Submersible
11:48 - Media Strategies in Crisis Communication
24:12 - Submarine Crisis and Brand Involvement
35:03 - Community Interaction Platform
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Last week it seemed as if everyone was gripped by the missing Titanic submersible story.
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I was one of those people.
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Not only was I following it just for the drama and for the ticking clock how much oxygen was going to be left for these five souls on board this submersible But I was also interested in the news coverage and how people were following the story based on the facts, what they were told and what they weren't told It was supposed to be a 10-hour journey to see the Titanic shipwreck, but it ended in tragedy.
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After a four-day search for the Titan submersible, the US Navy came to the conclusion that the vessel in all likelihood had a catastrophic implosion and killed all five people on board.
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Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast, where we use current events and tested media in PR strategies to help prevent a managing crisis and build an indestructible reputation.
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In this episode, ocean Gate, the company behind the missing Titanic submersible.
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It faced a significant PR crisis, but so did other brands and agencies and the people tied to this disaster.
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Let's examine the Titanic submersible from a media point of view.
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So public relations is a critical aspect of any company's success or their downfall, especially during a challenging time.
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So Ocean Gate, the company behind the missing Titanic tourist submersible they were named that most people had never heard of before until last week when the news reports started to leak out on Monday about the missing sub.
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Now I had posted a video to TikTok Soon after I heard the news.
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I happened to be at a college orientation session listening to information about my kids at college.
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I've been to this rodeo a few times, so I may have been on my phone and a notification came up about a missing sub.
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I don't know how you can turn away from a story like that.
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So I was actively paying attention while I was scrolling my phone And the story the news alerts coming out did not mention really any of the details other than a tourist sub was missing on its way to see the Titanic.
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Many people are familiar with the Titanic.
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Many people are familiar with the Titanic because the movie it's been romanticized by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, by the director, james Cameron.
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Does he play a part in the story?
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Of course he plays a part in the story, but in this episode I want to look at a number of the elements that I was looking at.
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Of course it's under the umbrella of public relations, because public relations is all about the public perception.
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The public perception is related to Oceangate, a fairly unknown company unless you were familiar with Titanic exploration, and also all the brands that were involved.
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Now, i don't need to go too deep into the facts here.
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We all I mean we were all following it.
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Even if you weren't actively following it, you couldn't help but hear about it because people were talking about it.
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What we found out last week, after a number of days of really wall-to-wall coverage on this, that there was a catastrophic implosion.
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So this was a Titanic bound submersible.
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So it was smaller.
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They said it was the size of a minivan that was lost in a search area that was the size of Connecticut.
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There were five people on board, killing everyone.
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From what we can tell instantly Now, this press conference was on Thursday at 3 o'clock Eastern Daylight Time.
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It took place at the Coast Guard Station at the first district.
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Now some people, when I had posted four posts, i think, about this sub-incident And a lot of people were asking you know why more people weren't involved?
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Why were there more search and rescue efforts?
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I mean, there are a lot of opinions out there because of social media, just to get this, you know, piece of it out of the way.
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I mean the reason why the US Coast Guard was responsible for the search.
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So, even though that the wreckage took place, so they're exploring the wreckage the Titanic wreckage is 900 miles east of Cape Cod, 13,000 feet below sea level.
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So now the Coast Guard isn't out there patrolling, but that area is part of the Boston Search and Rescue region.
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So this is, you know, through international treaty with the IMO, there's international maritime organization.
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There's just a lot of details there.
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But, in short, the reason why it belonged to the Coast Guard, the US Coast Guard and not Canada.
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Everyone was there to support it.
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But it was a Coast Guard search and rescue effort And they were responsible for the response.
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Now, what is interesting?
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if you were following the story, so when the news started to break on Monday, so if I was in the central time zone and so it was in the early afternoon that the story was starting to leak out, but now that we've learned, you know, a couple of days later, since that final press conference, that people knew when something happened on Sunday, we know now that it was, as I mentioned, a catastrophic implosion and that implosion happened on Sunday.
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But I was following how the news was being parsed out.
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You know the timing of the news, like when did we hear everything and when was it reported?
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It really did seem like it's a meta moment, right, it is.
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The coverage felt like a movie.
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It felt like we were watching a scripted drama about a scripted drama.
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That was in a movie that was based on facts, you know, historical facts of the sinking of the Titanic.
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It's all quite fascinating, which is, you know, another part of the reason why I think people were gripped by it.
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Now, a number of people had mentioned, you know, on the post, and I did, two lives as well.
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There was some, you know, there's some consternation.
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There's some, you know, some anger really about the fact that there was so much coverage dedicated to this case, when you know there are five people lost at sea and they were, you know, filled with billionaires.
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When there were hundreds of Pakistanis who were dead in the Mediterranean in a migrant boat disaster, there was a lot of people and a lot of people on social media had words to say about that, and on my lives as well, and I tend to be a defender of the press many times because I work with them.
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I also was one of them at one time And it's important to remember someone who also teaches it.
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You know, i'm an adjunct as well And I've just been in this business for 30 years.
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I mean, i started working.
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I actually started working in.
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My first media job was in college, you know, my first paid media job.
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So I've been in this business for a long, long time.
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I think what people forget about news coverage is that news is covered by reporters and editors and news teams right, and they work for a business.
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They don't work for an agency.
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It's not a part of the US government, it's not like Voice of America.
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It is their businesses.
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You know, kate, if you think of Fox News, you think of MSNBC, you think of CNN.
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They all have formats and they all, you know, cater their news to certain demographics and psychographics.
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So that's not to apologize for the press, but I think that's just important to keep in mind.
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And also the news, news editors oftentimes decide what to, oftentimes decide what to post and what to report on.
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You know, based on what people are talking about and what they're watching.
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If no one watched the sub, the sub disaster unfold, cnn would not be covering it And the New York Times would not have, you know, frequent, minute by minute updates of what happened.
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The reason why they were doing it is because people wanted that information And it is a business And I had also said on a number of lives as well is the press did cover the migrant disaster.
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I was watching it, i was, i was familiar with it and I was definitely following it.
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But the complaints do bring up, you know, an important part of what the press does cover.
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You know, if there are communication theories, there's the agenda setting theory, which involves news and news coverage.
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It's when an editor decides what is news, do they set an agenda?
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And they can do that.
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You know absolutely An example of an agenda setting theory This is.
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This is fictitious, i'm coming up with this, but this would be if the Washington Post all of a sudden, during the sub story, decided to write a, decided to write a piece justifying why billionaires want to go to extreme measures for fun, for hobby and for exploration.
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One might accuse the Washington Post of setting an agenda there.
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There'd be agenda setting theory in play.
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Why?
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Because Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, so one could think maybe he would come down and say you have to write a piece.
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You know we cannot taint this idea of exploration, because that is really the topic, you know, of the podcast this week.
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I want to talk about the PR.
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I want to talk about the reputation, not really about the facts, because we all know the facts, but watching the names and the brands and the companies that were involved was interesting as well.
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So, quickly, i just want to go through, you know, some of the, some of the good.
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You know the strategies that I saw in this and some of the worst ones that I saw for the purpose of people you know who work in comms and people who you know work in public relations, public affairs, communications, leadership.
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This, this crisis or this disaster, to me was a bit of a throwback.
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I worked in news and I worked on the other side, public affairs as well, back in the 90s and the early 2000s, and this story just harken back to a time before social media, before we had extra coverage, extra sources to kind of color and build a story.
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Back in the 90s we didn't have social media And I compared it to a time when I was reporting on JFK Jr's plane that was lost off the waters of Martha's Vineyard, just off of Woods Hole.
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There wasn't social media, there wasn't video.
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You know, there wasn't someone filming JFK Jr as he drove into New Jersey to get into his plane.
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The coverage wasn't there.
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It was a plane that took off when it was sunset, it was foggy, which I absolutely remember, the foggy weather that day, except I lived in Cape Cod And then poof, it was gone.
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So there wasn't any color, if you will.
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From a news point of view, there wasn't anything to show.
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There wasn't B-roll, just the only B-roll that was out.
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There was just an ocean, and this story, the sub-story, was so similar to that.
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Okay, so some of the strategies that I saw that were interesting to me.
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So let's look at some of the good ones Now there was transparency and timely communication.
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One of the things that I did notice right away is when, as soon as I found out about the story, i had posted this on social media that I immediately went to Twitter to look for real-time information from Ocean Gate.
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They had an older tweet, an older pinned tweet, up there And so that was dated, but they did replace it with updated information.
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I think that took a day or two to do that, but one of the things that they did do right away that I noticed when I looked at the news coverage and CBS News was the first, i believe, that I noticed that had information, that they were actually confirmed that there were tourists on that submersible And they got that information directly from Ocean Gate.
00:12:51.590 --> 00:12:57.342
So that is one piece of it, that Ocean Gate wasn't hiding anything.
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They did speak with the press and they put the information out there.
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It wasn't as timely as it could have been, but there was transparency there right away.
00:13:05.667 --> 00:13:14.144
So when the story hit breaking news, there was an Ocean Gate response right out the gate.
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Also the US Coast Guard they were on this as well.
00:13:18.360 --> 00:13:23.902
I mean, they handled the press relations pretty well.
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Like I said, it was out of the first district.
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It was not out of headquarters, which is out of Washington DC, it was out of Boston.
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Their Twitter page was very active with updates, so everyone knew that that was the agency and that was the district, the first district that was involved.
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Now another good part of the media strategy is, i think, through all of this, everyone involved demonstrated empathy and concern For the five people on board.
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That's immersive, submersible, even though we had billionaires on there.
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This was an extreme exploration hobby at really at its finest or its worst.
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You wouldn't notice in the news coverage that there was any type of bias towards that or commentary.
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There was definitely commentary on social media, for sure, but there was definitely empathy and care.
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The coverage for these very wealthy people and one of their sons, a 19-year-old son.
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It felt similar coverage if anyone was on board, not just billionaires.
00:14:27.769 --> 00:14:34.590
So I thought that piece of it was quite good in terms of the coverage.
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The Coast Guard and their messaging expressed sincere empathy, as did Oceangate and their messaging showing concern for the passengers, though we did not know that one of the passengers at that time was the CEO of Oceangate and also the husband of the wife who also worked for Oceangate, who apparently is the head of communications for the company and was also one of the people on the boat.
00:15:02.471 --> 00:15:12.590
Now, the other piece that I think that was good is in terms of what we saw in terms of the coverage and the press relations on this.
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The media relations was leveraging social media experts.
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You noticed that in the press conferences with the Coast Guard, they brought other people in.
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They had someone from the UK, since we had someone from the UK who was on board.
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There was definitely.
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It was a multi-agency effort.
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You never got the sense that it was only one agency that was calling the shots on this, and now that we've learned that the agencies knew more than the public knew, that's going to segue us into the worst media strategies that we saw here Now.
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In the environment that we're in in 2023, so much of news coverage happens online.
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That's just how it is Gone are the days of people just sitting and looking at televisions and waiting for breaking news, although that happened, but many people, i would bet if you're listening to me right now, you are probably following this on your phone or following it on your laptop, and if you watch the press conference with the Coast Guard, you watched it on your laptop.
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You watched the online version because a lot of people were covering it.
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So, from a news coverage point of view, what you could take away from this is how critical social media is when it comes to media relations, particularly in a crisis situation.
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That's where people are A newspaper, if it comes out once a day, i don't even know does anyone have twice a day editions anymore An afternoon, an afternoon, a morning, an afternoon?
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I don't think so.
00:16:47.620 --> 00:16:54.582
But you know, and even cable news, or watching cable news, but so much of it is driven by social.
00:16:55.152 --> 00:16:58.844
Now, what made that piece somewhat sticky?
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because there's a lot of information out there.
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There's a lot of people talking, a lot of people asking questions, but we had somewhat of a transparency problem as well.
00:17:08.569 --> 00:17:16.500
So, even though Ocean Gate and the Coast Guard came out right away and they were transparent with information, they were not transparent with.
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The biggest news in this entire story is that most people affiliated with the company and the agencies and the entities that were involved in the search, they all knew that the the implosion happened on Sunday.
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They all knew it.
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They sat on the information.
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Now, it's not a conspiracy theorist here.
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There's many things that could be at play.
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They needed to determine likely, they needed to determine how it was going to be revealed that there was a catastrophic implosion, even though it was picked up.
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The implosion was picked up on Sonar, apparently, And the Navy had indicated that they were familiar, that they knew that this had happened on Sunday, but the fact that so many people knew about it and kept it under wraps, they probably knew, from a search and recovery aspect, what they needed to do to confirm what happened.
00:18:17.814 --> 00:18:24.273
So when that hovercraft came to put down the Sonars, i believe they knew exactly where they were going.
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They knew exactly where it was And went bloop And they knew what they needed to find and that's where they could find the wreckage.
00:18:30.912 --> 00:18:44.278
So there was a narrative that was crafted for the public And I had said on one of my TikToks it seemed a little calculated.
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It seemed a little calculated but I don't know who did that Like.
00:18:47.224 --> 00:18:49.373
I do not know who would be the mastermind behind that.
00:18:49.373 --> 00:18:51.792
I mean certainly the agencies.
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You have the Coast Guard and the Navy and the Canadian Coast Guard and the entities coming over from France and the IMO.
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Everyone is involved in this.
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There's such a maritime element of it.
00:19:02.651 --> 00:19:05.133
They had to keep that news under wrap.
00:19:05.133 --> 00:19:09.528
But what I found so fascinating is the no one in news.
00:19:09.528 --> 00:19:19.174
At least from what I can tell, and I was looking no one was coming out with a storyline about people knowing on Sunday.
00:19:19.174 --> 00:19:22.871
Like, shouldn't we have known on Sunday for the amount of people who knew?
00:19:22.871 --> 00:19:28.847
So not only do we not have that information, we also had this.
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Next, this additional narrative of Banging.
00:19:38.064 --> 00:19:42.351
When that story went live, i happened to see it right away.
00:19:42.351 --> 00:19:49.952
I was online when I saw it, or I was doing it live, i think, when it came out And I quoted it from the independent that there was banging.
00:19:49.952 --> 00:19:59.009
And then how long did that banging narrative stay out there, when people already knew it could not be true, It was impossible.
00:19:59.009 --> 00:20:03.114
And then once we hear begging, i mean talk about a storyline in a movie.
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Is it possible?
00:20:04.166 --> 00:20:09.948
they're all in there in this tank the size of a minivan and someone's banging.
00:20:09.948 --> 00:20:15.692
And then people said, well, it's the universal sign for distress, for SOS, for submariners.
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It was crazy.
00:20:17.009 --> 00:20:20.875
But no one no one who knew stopped that narrative.
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They let it go.
00:20:22.744 --> 00:20:35.434
Also, the oxygen they knew that the oxygen was running at a certain time, that it was going to run out at a certain time, news coverage was allowed to continue with that narrative.
00:20:35.434 --> 00:20:38.632
They had oxygen watch clocks.
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You know how much oxygen was left?
00:20:40.130 --> 00:20:42.471
Now I mean we have to know.
00:20:42.471 --> 00:20:56.797
And because it wasn't uncovered and because no one reported on it, the molly me says people knew, like likely, even in the media, the press, they knew as well.
00:20:56.797 --> 00:20:58.471
Like someone had editors had to know.
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People know nothing gets covered.
00:21:00.269 --> 00:21:04.474
So maybe they were encouraged to keep that going.
00:21:04.474 --> 00:21:12.778
Now what would be the incentive to keep a narrative of diminishing, depleting oxygen by the hour?
00:21:12.778 --> 00:21:26.493
It's so, hollywood, because you're going to get people gripped, people watching, and not only are they just going to like, watch and kind of tune in, keep watching, keep watching.
00:21:26.493 --> 00:21:30.253
So this was quite a boon for the press.
00:21:30.253 --> 00:21:35.308
So there was probably some buy-in there too to keep people there.
00:21:36.705 --> 00:21:44.351
This drama as it unfolded, it unfolded over days, so this was days of wall-to-wall coverage.
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So think about that Now.
00:21:46.244 --> 00:21:48.051
Think about that from a business point of view.
00:21:48.051 --> 00:21:55.394
Okay, so that lack of transparency may have been a part of a bigger strategy.
00:21:55.394 --> 00:21:58.252
So also the second piece of it.
00:21:58.625 --> 00:22:00.352
There was a lack of media engagement.
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I mean certainly with Ocean Gate.
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I mean they just shut down, after they had that statement.
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Their website even crashed or they took their website down.
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They didn't want people going in there and digging for more facts to find out bad things about these expeditions.
00:22:14.135 --> 00:22:22.094
So there was a lack of media engagement in terms of spokespeople.
00:22:22.305 --> 00:22:27.633
Now it's understandable why Ocean Gate wouldn't be able to provide a spokesperson.
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I think it's reasonable without me I don't really know this, but that size of the company probably everyone who could be a spokesperson was probably on that boat or the CEO, who usually the face of that company.
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He was dead on Sunday.
00:22:42.971 --> 00:22:48.871
So when you're leader in, your primary spokesperson is taken out of the game.
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Now you're scrambling to find out who's doing it.
00:22:51.211 --> 00:22:58.550
Now, if the director of communication is the wife of Saxton Rush, the CEO who's on the sub, well, she can't be a spokesperson either.
00:22:58.550 --> 00:23:04.047
So there's probably a lot of scrambling And there's probably not much to say anyway to go on to.
00:23:04.086 --> 00:23:07.211
You know, because there's so much scrutiny with that company anyway.
00:23:07.211 --> 00:23:12.236
But that should not be a playbook to follow for any company.
00:23:12.236 --> 00:23:20.311
It's understandable why Ocean Gate for as limited of the resources they likely had, but no other company should ever be that silent.
00:23:20.311 --> 00:23:23.692
So that would be a bad media strategy there.
00:23:23.692 --> 00:23:26.732
Also, the limited social media presence.
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Like I said, their website went down.
00:23:28.690 --> 00:23:31.712
Their weren't tweets, their weren't posts.
00:23:31.712 --> 00:23:33.451
They did update a pin tweet.
00:23:33.451 --> 00:23:35.971
I had mentioned the pin tweet earlier.
00:23:38.105 --> 00:23:42.672
An important aspect of media relations in the social media age is a pin tweet.
00:23:42.672 --> 00:23:46.990
A pin tweet is what you put at the top of a social media feed all the social media.
00:23:46.990 --> 00:23:48.397
Wait, does TikTok?
00:23:48.397 --> 00:23:58.771
I don't know TikTok has pinned tweets or pinned, i don't even know but I know Facebook does And the purpose behind it is it's the real estate that everyone looks at first.
00:23:58.771 --> 00:24:11.099
So if it is a crisis and you are an organization dealing with a crisis, whatever your statement is, you're going to pin that tweet, because every time someone replies to something that might be pushed down, but if someone goes to your page, they're going to see it right there.
00:24:12.061 --> 00:24:20.119
It took a while for them to remove a pinned tweet which was thanking their partner, starlink, for their successful tie-tap.
00:24:20.119 --> 00:24:22.099
It's a successful Titanic expedition.
00:24:22.099 --> 00:24:30.099
Starlink is owned by, run by SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk.
00:24:30.099 --> 00:24:33.256
So that way and is that interesting that Elon Musk?
00:24:33.256 --> 00:24:34.119
We never heard about Elon Musk?
00:24:34.119 --> 00:24:41.029
We never heard about Starlink at all in the story, yet His company was the one that was involved in the communication.
00:24:41.029 --> 00:24:48.079
So what we don't want to follow in any type of a crisis is having a website shut down and have it crash.
00:24:48.079 --> 00:24:52.766
That's where you want to put your statement is on your website and a pinned tweet, if you can.
00:24:52.766 --> 00:24:56.465
You want it in both places And also by using social media.
00:24:56.465 --> 00:24:58.971
It's a way where you don't have to deal with reporters directly.
00:24:59.721 --> 00:25:06.099
I had mentioned on my one of my TikToks that CBS News clearly was able to get a hold of someone at Ocean Gate.
00:25:06.099 --> 00:25:10.119
So they, i believe, if I remember correctly, they had a direct source.
00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:19.119
So they had a direct quote from someone at Ocean Gate where everyone else was quoting off of that And so really, in a crisis, especially for a company like that, they should not be picking up the phone.
00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:23.288
That's where a website could come in All right, so quickly.
00:25:23.288 --> 00:25:25.038
Some of the things to highlight in there as well.
00:25:25.038 --> 00:25:26.505
So I talked about the news.
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Now think about the station that you went to to watch it.
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Now me, i went to CNN.
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I always think that they're right in the middle.
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They weren't for a bit when Chris Licht was there.
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But who, what, who?
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Who?
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