Boardroom report

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Dear student,

Kindly take note that your assignment requirement is

slightly different from these sample assignments. The

content is not necessary accurate for you to use.

Please adhere to the assignment requirement,

guidelines and brief that stated in the Module Study

Guide – Brand Reputation Management. By looking at

this sample assignment, you will be able to

understand the structure and format for a boardroom

report.

Your tutor,

Sherine Kwok

16 March 2020

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Individual Boardroom Report Claridge’s Breastfeeding Incident

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Executive Summary Missing! Should summarize the report An executive summary provides an overview of the report and is usually the first thing your reader will see. The executive summary should address these main points: • Purpose o What is the point of the document? Make sure you have a purpose when writing the summary. • Introduction (company details and the threat) • The Underperformed Reputation Drivers and Impacts to Stakeholders • The Current Management Practice and Alternative Perspectives • Conclusion and Recommendations for Alterations to Practices

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Table of Contents

Introduction: .................................................................................................................... 5

1. The Underperformed Reputation Drivers and Impact on Stakeholders ........................... 6

1.1. Citizenship and Governance ......................................................................................... 6

1.2 Product and Services (293) ........................................................................................... 7

1.3 The Consequences of Social Media on Brand Reputation Management ......................... 7

1.4 Impact on the stakeholders .......................................................................................... 8

2. Alternatives Perspectives leading to advancements in current brand practice ................ 9

2.1 Brand Management from 2014 ........................................................................................... 9

2.2 Be more present on social media. ..................................................................................... 10

2.3 Communication to achieve brand awareness to other segments ........................................ 11

2.4 Reposition of the brand .................................................................................................... 12

3. Recommendations for alterations to current management practices ........................... 13

3.1 Optimal Crisis Management 2014 ..................................................................................... 13

3.2 Luxurious communication ................................................................................................. 13

3.3 Ethical behaviour.............................................................................................................. 14

3.4 Internal Brand Management ............................................................................................. 15

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 17

Appendices : ................................................................................................................... 18

Appendix 1: RepTrack® Model ................................................................................................ 18

Appendix 2 : Differences in Old and New Media ..................................................................... 19

Appendix 3 : Divided Stakeholder’s opinion ............................................................................ 19

Appendix 4 : PR Apologies Tweets .......................................................................................... 20

Appendix 5 : Claridge’s new Digital Strategy ........................................................................... 20

Appendix 6 : Claridge’s new positioning .................................................................................. 22

References: .................................................................................................................... 25

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Introduction:

According to Christodoulies and De Cheratony (2002), a brand is a cluster of

rational and emotional values that enable stakeholders to recognise a promise

about a unique and welcoming experience. If a brand presents a strong heritage,

then it is better prepared to uncertain environment (Urde et al, 2007) and to interact

with its customers at emotional and symbolic levels (Ballantyne et al, 2006).

Although, the 200 years old luxurious hotel Claridge’s has failed to deliver its

promise, to adapt to the changing society views and to engage positively wi th one

customer which led to a reputation risk that the brand had to manage. The

behaviour of the hotel towards the breastfeeding issue of 2014 might have affected

the hotel’s revenue and profitability as the brand image and equity was

compromised (Yaros et Wood, 1979; Brunk, 2010). But this incident became a risk

to the brand as it was submitted to a powerful EWOM tarnishing the brand’s

reputation. Although if a bad publicity is managed with strategy, the brand may

restore the lost customer confidence (Vassilikopoulou et al, 2008).

The study is directed on this old incident of Claridge’s to discover if this brand

crisis is transient (Haig, 2005).

To do so, the underperformed reputation drivers will firstly be established and

examined. Then, the correlation between the social media and brand reputation

will be exposed and next the impact on the stakeholders will be discussed.

Secondly, the investigation into the brand’s action to restore and manage its

reputation after the risk will be done. At last, some recommendations for the brand

to further strengthen their renewed brand reputation and to avoid any more issues

regarding the problems will be presented.

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1. The Underperformed Reputation Drivers and Impact on Stakeholders The reputation of a brand is built on intangible assets that have an impact on the

brand’s performance and competitive advantage (Ponzi et al, 2011). In that way,

measuring a brand seems complicated (Ponzi et al, 2011). Although, the RepTrack®

technique appears to be appropriate to evaluate the Claridge’s brand’s performance

during the events of 2014. Established on a simple emotion-based measure of

corporate reputation (Ponzi et al, 2011), this technique enlightens seven indexes

(Appendix 1). In the case of Claridge’s, the hotel has underperformed on three

aspects: Citizenship and Governance as well as Products and Services.

1.1. Citizenship and Governance Corporate citizenship was associated to the organization’s share of responsibility to

develop a social agenda beyond that required by the law (Lin et al, 2010). More

recently, citizenship takes under account the stakeholder’s perceptions of the

company as environmentally friendly, a supporter of good causes and a positive

contributor to society (Fombrun et al, 2015). Moreover, the citizenship of a company

implies to have an effective impact on society (Reputation Institute, 2017) and to not

harm the public (Fan, 2005). In that way, a good citizenship is related to responsible

behaviour (Tichy et al, 1997).

Claridge’s has underperformed in Citizenship for two reasons. Firstly, the hotel’s policy

for breastfeeding were against the law. In fact, according to the Equality Act (2010), a

business cannot discriminate a mother breastfeeding a child of any age. Secondly, the

employee’s actions have offended the client (The Guardian, 2014) as well as the

public. The important impact on society can be explained by the rise of the notion of

CSR which has developed higher expectations on the business’s behaviours towards

society (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001).

Although, citizenship is closely linked to governance which represents another driver

the hotel has underperformed. In fact, the behaviour of the hotel during and after the

incident can be qualified as unethical, unfair and lacking transparency (Fombrun et al,

2015). The staff has justified its behaviour based on the hotel policies which were not

clearly presented or specified beforehand. Then, in view of the legislature, the policy

regarding the issue is immoral and unfair as the hotel should comply with the law. An

opposite example is the restaurant Brasserie Blanc whose manager invited mothers

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to breastfeed into the restaurant while enjoying a cup of tea (The Caterer, Stagg, 2014)

six month before the incident at Claridge’s.

1.2 Product and Services

A company is known for its products and services offerings; two attributes impacting

the company’s reputation due to the customer’s perception (Smith et al, 2010)

depending on those. To determine said perception, guests rely on the quality of the

offerings and the customer support provided (Lange et al, 2011). For Claridge’s

situation, the service quality was tarnished with the incident which affected the rest of

the experience and the following customer support was barely existent (Appendix 4).

Although Claridge’s reputation is based on the brand promise to deliver unique guest

experiences with an impeccable, intuitive and highly tailored service, its heritage and

tradition (Claridges.com, 2019). With the desire to preserve the tradition of the hotel,

the employees have failed to uphold the brand promise. Plus, it has been shown that

focusing on providing the best service possible rather than working hard to maintain

the reputation, leads to a positive customer view of the services and a positive word

of mouth (Anonymous, 2012).

The evaluation of a customer experience can be described as either good or bad

(Skard et al, 2011). The incident that happened was enough for the client to present

her whole experience as disappointing and bad (The Guardian, 2014). Furthermore,

she shared this bad experience through E-Word of Mouth (EWOM). EWOM is defined

as a positive or negative comment of and actual or former customer on the product or

service offering of a brand available to a multitude of people through the internet

(Henning Thurau et al, 2004). EWOM also influences other stakeholder’s impressions

of the brand. As a result, they can stop envisioning the brand as trustworthy and well

regarded (Fombrun et al, 2015). Then, EWOM and social media have a great impact

on brand reputation.

1.3 The Consequences of Social Media on Brand Reputation Management The incident at Claridge’s became a risk to the brand’s reputation because of the

importance of social media and EWOM that the hotel had not considered. Social

medias affect reputation risks as it broadens the extent and pushes the risk’s dynamics

(Aula, 2010). Plus, Twitter is one of the most prominent social networking community

(Turri et al, 2013). Thus, social networks represent important tools for user interaction

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(O’Reilly, 2007). As a result, communication changed from a one-to-many

communication with a non-participative audience to a many-to-many communication

involving public interaction (Jenkins, 2006; Appendix 2). Therefore, stakeholders are

no longer communication receivers but active participants with content’s evaluation

and the global engagement with everyone (Dellarocas, 2003; Colleoni et al, 2011).

Said engagement emanates from the user’s new power: to share the WOM more

widely.

The content of the message is based on the user’s say about the brand’s product and

services as he is not dependent of the corporation (Brown et al, 2007; Silverman,

1997). Moreover, this independence makes the WOM’s message more reliable and

trustworthy because it is not supervised by the brand (Allsop et al, 2007). This new

dynamic established by social media between the brand and the customer enables

him to share brand experiences and become a creator of brand stories, then affecting

brand performance (Gensler et al, 2013) and developing threats.

Furthermore, containing the scope of information through these channels seems

impossible. In fact, it spreads so quickly that it becomes viral (Colleoni et al, 2011). It

is undeniable that the social networks’ influence in the creation and construction of the

brand image is important (Muniz et O’Guinn, 2011). Whereas, good reputation is

supposed to generate positive word of mouth and recommendations (Walsh et Beatty,

2007), a negative EWOM results in a risk for the corporation and impact the

stakeholder’s view towards the hotel.

1.4 Impact on the stakeholders As it was presented before, these new communication channels are not under the

brand’s control. However, they can enable interactions with the brand, which is

important to every corporation (Aula, 2010). Thus, these channels help the customer

to join the process of corporation evaluation. Corporate reputations are linked to

supportive behaviours like the intent to purchase and to share positive WOM (Ponzi

et al, 2011). Although, EWOM represent a great impact on consumer behaviour

regarding decision making (Cantallops et Salvi, 2015). With interpersonal influence,

it represents the most valued source of information for the purchase decision making

(Litvin et al, 2008). Consumers resort to social media to obtain information about a

brand (Naylor et al, 2012; Barreda et al, 2015) with an opinion seeking attitude adopted

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to find information and advice from other consumers before the purchase decision

(Chu et Kim, 2011). However, consumers on social media can have an opinion giving

attitude describing users influencing other consumers’ behaviours or an opinion

passing attitude composed of users facilitating the flow of information (Chu et Kim,

2011). The people engaging in the Claridge’s issue of 2014 belong to the two last

categories. On one hand, some users have taken a role of an active participant (Singh

et Sonnenburg, 2012). On another hand, the people took part in the social media

interaction by retweeting and sharing the information (Hudson et al, 2015; The

Guardian, 2014). The wide scale reached by social media (O’Connor, 2008) leads to

have a bigger range of stakeholders impacted and partaking in the exchange.

In the case of Claridge’s, the stakeholders showed a divided opinion (Appendix 3) on

the impact. Some took the side of the mother and protested against the hotel’s conduct

when others decided that the hotel acted in the right way (EveningStandard, 2014).

Nevertheless, as the issue depended on social and political ideas, opinions from public

establishment as well as political figures emerged (The Guardian, 2014).

2. Alternatives Perspectives leading to advancements in current brand practice To present the solutions Claridge’s implemented to restore its reputation over the

last few years, their risk management strategy from 2014 must be analysed before

showing their chosen actions to mitigate such a situation to arise again.

2.1 Brand Management from 2014 As Aula (2010) presented a reputation risk can be the result of a corporation’s own

communication activities. The reactive and proactive response of Claridge’s on the

Social Media Twitter aggravated the situation because of the reaction to the claim

(Aula, 2010) (Appendix 4). Even though the reactive strategy only represents how the

company can provide a spontaneous reaction to the environment change (Del Mar

Alonson-Almeida, 2015), it was not suitable to propose a discount to the client as

luxury does not look for cost reductions (Kapferer, 2014). Converserly, corporations

have to engage into proactive communications as to contain the risk and correct the

reputation’s damages (Aula, 2010). Through a strategically chosen communication

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channel (Garrett et al, 1989), in that case Twitter, a reputation building comment aims

to diminish the deterioration of the brand image and reputation (Ginzel et al, 1992).

However, the response of Claridge’s consisting of two sentences were not supported

by proof of statement or credibility (Greyser, 2009). In fact, the tweets and the hotel’s

employee statements differ as for “embracing breastfeeding” (Twitter, 2014).

Furthermore, negative brand publicity comes out of five organization’s positions which

are no comment, denial, excuse, justification and confession (McDonald et al, 2010).

Two of these were applied by Claridge’s. The first is denial which was expressed

through the tweets by taking a stand against the established policies. The second is

the ‘no comment’ representing the response of the hotel’s spokesperson to the

journalists (The Guardian, 2014). Thus, the hotel and the PR team has chosen to carry

out a strategy of absence with the choice to not engage proactively and letting the

information to be unidirectional (Aula, 2010).

Nevertheless, Claridge’s has taken actions as to manage its brand after the scandal

of 2014.

2.2 Be more present on social media. The ability to adapt to the viral EWOM through these uncontrolled channels helps to

build the brand (Laroche et al, 2013). Moreover, social media represent a marketing

channel giving opportunities to brand and reputation building (Perrey and Spillecke,

2012). Therefore, it was in the best interest of Claridge’s to change their digital

strategy. Posting unique contents, being active as well as present to engage with the

customers and promoting interaction (Godey et al, 2016) represent Claridge’s strategy

(Appendix 5). For instance, Claridge’s answers to customer tweets, customer

complaints and uses the platform as a customer service assistant (Twitter, 2019). This

new strategy offers the brand the possibility to restore its credibility and affinity by

creating relationships with the customer (Manthiou et al, 2013). In fact, social media

is a way for brands to access their consumers and develop personal relationships with

them (Kelly et al, 2010; Godey et al, 2016). With the importance of social media, hotel

marketers are given a powerful marketing tool to help them interact and link with the

customers (Dhaoui, 2014). Claridge’s is being more responsive and implicated to the

customers’ posts, thus establishing a stronger relation with them (Peterson, 2015;

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Park et al, 2018). Nevertheless, as well as creating these relationships, social media

platforms have an important role in fostering them (Godey et al, 2016).

This new presence of the hotel through these new communications channels

represent a real advantage. Communicating through these new channels influence

brand equity (Bruhn et al, 2012). Furthermore, the engagement of a brand on social

media and other users content impact on customer’s purchase intentions (Goh et al,

2013). Therefore, Claridge’s reposts other sources texts to affect the customers. Plus,

these interactions with the consumer’s also shape the brand image through the built

connections and content from both the brand and the online user (Tsai & Men, 2013).

2.3 Communication to achieve brand awareness to other segments

According to Kapferer and Bastien (2012), luxury brands have to communicate to

those they are not targeting. Therefore, the brand should be known by more people

than those who can afford the service (Kapferer and Bastien, 2012). To be present on

social media enables a brand to be more visible to those who might not be aware of

the company’s existence (Khajuria, 2017). Moreover, social media and internet help

to reach other consumer groups that are hard to get access to and make brand

awareness easier (Khajuria, 2017). Indeed, Twitter itself is used on its own as a

marketing tool to generate said awareness (Husain et al, 2016). Therefore, brand

awareness is positively affected by the presence on social media that facilitates the

process (Hutter et al, 2013). Although, as well as building brand awareness, these

communications lead to the creation of a favourable brand image (Khajuria, 2017).

Thus, Claridge’s presence on the multiple social medias (Twitter, Facebook,

Instagram) helped the brand to be more known through the various segment groups.

Indeed, these communication channels help companies to reach their specific

customer segments but also to engage on a larger scale (Khajuria, 2017) with other

groups.

Considering the luxury market is changing due to the arrival of new customer

segments (Ko, Phau & Aiello, 2016), Claridge’s digital strategy will help to reach them.

For instance, the younger generation is more receptive to these marketing tools as

they shape and develop their decision-making process (Dover and Salkowitz, 2011).

and represent the future customers the hotel. In fact, Twitchell (2002) considers them

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as the major consumers in the luxury market and Viswanathan and Jain (2013) as the

most powerful segment in history. Therefore, Claridge’s extends its brand awareness

with its new internet presence which helps the hotel to reach possible customers.

2.4 Reposition of the brand Although, positioning is presented as irrelevant to luxury (Kapferer and Bastien, 2012),

Claridge’s hotel still had to review its positioning concerning the family’s audience.

Indeed, a product is only considered if it is a part of the selection process (Kapferer,

2012). After the incident of 2014, Claridge’s seemed to be discriminative towards little

children and by extension families. Thus, the hotel had to prove its new stance through

its communication as marketing communications represent the main medium to

achieve positioning (Blankson et al, 2014). Then, the hotel implemented the offer of

the Happy Families (Appendix 6) proposing a range of benefits for families coming to

the hotel (Claridge’s.com, 2019). Moreover, the social media posts present grown

children within the hotel facilities and enjoying the services (Claridge’s Instagram,

2019) (Appendix 6). Therefore, with proactive strategies to improve its image,

Claridge’s follows Arnott’s (1992) proposition of positioning presented as a deliberate

and proactive process of defining, modifying and monitoring consumer perceptions of

a marketable object. Besides, positioning has to be done strategically with focused

abilities based on a proactive management with the main assistance of the marketing

communications (Blankson et al, 2014). The use of different types of communication

media creates a stronger path to brand positioning (Blankson et al, 2014). Then,

Claridge’s new stance seen on the social media strengthens the position

advertisement of the website (Appendix 6). Furthermore, by posting logical and

coherent content (Blankson et al, 2014), Claridge’s conveys their desired position with

better efficiency.

At last, redefining a brand’s position is a long-term process that requires investments,

advertisement and time (Fuchs and Diamantopoulos, 2010). With the consideration

that the incident happened five years ago and the important communication of the

brand, it can be implied that the position of Claridge’s has been established.

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3. Recommendations for alterations to current management practices

3.1 Optimal Crisis Management 2014 Instead of implementing a Strategy of Absence, the hotel’s team should have

applicated a Strategy of Attendance. In fact, this particular strategy relies on the

engagement within the social media conversations and positions the company as a

listener. Therefore, it can gather, share and consider the information. Moreover, this

implication into the ongoing dialog affects the stakeholders and brings a higher value

(Aula, 2010). As a result, Claridge’s could have proven its stance in the matter with

more credibility due to the shown interest and engagement.

Another problem from their various responses (Appendix 4) is based on the quality of

the statements. The posted Position Key Messages were well constructed with four

main points separated in four clear sentences (Paraskevas, 2018). Although, they did

not fulfil their role in calming the stakeholders (Paraskevas, 2018). This can be

explained by the lack of authenticity and truth in them (Greyser, 2009). For instance,

when they write that the hotel ‘do embrace breastfeeding’, it is in direct opposition to

the EWOM of the client which represents concrete opposite evidence. Even though,

Claridge’s directly tackles the issue in its messages, the hotel does not offer a clear

ring of credibility or proof to support its words (Greyser, 2009). Therefore, Claridge’s

messages should have shown that they admitted their wrongdoings instead of

showing a position which is contrary to the client’s story and employee’s behaviour.

Then after gathering the information through the previous established Strategy of

Attendance, the hotel could have proved its will to change by engaging effective

actions to remedy its position towards the issue. In fact, communication on its own

cannot help to rehabilitate a brand reputation (Greyser, 2009). At last, Claridge’s

should also have acknowledged the issue on with a Press Release on the hotel’s

website. This communication still is important and gives the hotel the opportunity to

deliver its side of the story (Greyser, 2009). This action could have further proved the

hotel’s engagement to the stakeholders.

3.2 Luxurious communication

Even though it was mandatory for Claridge’s to be more active on the social media, its

online communication should cultivate the desire and exclusivity of luxury brands

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(Okonkwo, 2009). One of the main foundations of luxury brand management is to build

a psychological distance between the luxury brand and the mass market (Kapferer &

Bastien, 2012; Wiedmann et al, 2009).

But the hotel undertakes a digital strategy based on an active friendly engagement

with every consumer’s comment which is associated to a high customer-brand

engagement over the social media (Park et al, 2018). This high level of engagement

strategy leads to a decrease of the psychological distance (Park et al, 2018).

Therefore, Claridge’s develops a poor psychological distance because of the strong

presence on the online platforms which can result in negative outcomes for the luxury

brand. In fact, this level of psychological distance leads a low perception of social

value (De Barnier et al, 2012) as well as damage in the social status and character of

the brand (Park et al, 2018).

Then, Claridge’s digital communication has to become more luxurious. Thus, it should

switch to a low-level engagement strategy. This strategy relies on a selection of

consumer’s comments to respond to and a more particular attention on the brand

messages it conveys (Park et al, 2017). Besides, the luxury brands advertisements

have to broadcast superiority, exclusivity and exclusion to maintain luxury brands as

socially empowering (Jiang et al, 2004).

Claridge’s feed on Twitter is mostly composed of redundant retweets of common

contents. Therefore, Claridge’s should measure the effectiveness of the adverts

(Okonkwo, 2009). This approach will emanate exclusivity by only giving attention to

some users and restore a distance with an occasional online presence.

3.3 Ethical behaviour By encompassing the issues of conscience surrounding society, brands can avoid

misconduct and damage to their reputation (Brunk, 2012). Then, if Claridge’s had

taken interest in the social environment surrounding the hotel, it may have been able

to act ethically, thus avoiding the scandal and the implications it entailed in 2014.

Applying this practice today will help the brand to become ethical. In fact, an ethical

brand revolves around actions such as abiding the law, respecting moral norms, acting

in a socially responsible way or avoiding damaging behaviour (Brunk, 2012). However,

these actions have to be coupled with a set of attributes known as integrity, honesty,

responsibility and respect in order to promote public good (Fan, 2005). Then, the hotel

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can aim to have a better ethical conduct by applying consumer sovereignty which

requires a bigger focus on the consumers’ needs and expectations rather than the

company profits (Story and Hess, 2010). Besides, ethical brand behaviour based on

the ethical treatment of each customer represents a strategy optimizing profit through

their collaborative relationship (Story and Hess, 2010). Consumers are also attracted

by ethical conduct as it influences (Shaw and Shiu, 2002) and drives the consumers’

choices (Bussey, 2006). Therefore, conducting an ethical behaviour is in the best

interest of brands (Francis, 2001) like Claridge’s.

To implement ethical behaviour, the hotel has to be more attentive to the social

environment changes and the client’s attitudes towards them. In fact, some incidents

towards breastfeeding had happened before the one that took place at Claridge’s

(theargus.co.uk, 2014). Then, by being more attentive, the hotel will be able to change

to an ethical behaviour before the situation arises, thus avoiding further unethical

behaviour and reputation crisis. This conduct will palliate the two first reputation drivers

the hotel underperformed in 2014. To gap the last one, the hotel has to review its

internal brand management.

3.4 Internal Brand Management

Internal Brand Management (IBM) represent the actions taken by an organisation to

ensure the brand promise delivery, as well as the brands values coming from the

customer’s expectation, by the employees (Punjaisri & Wilson, 2011). Claridge’s

employees failed to deliver the hotel’s brand promise to the client. Therefore, the hotel

needs to be more implicated with the IBM based on the employees’ training. In fact, it

is the responsibility of the employee to convey the brand promise through their

attitudes and behaviour (King and Grace, 2010, Piehler et al, 2016). Although, without

brand understanding, employees cannot deliver or shape their attitudes according to

the brand promise in their work (Xiong and King, 2015; King and Grace, 2010, Piehler

et al, 2016). In order to affect the employees’ conduct to fit the hotel’s demands,

employees must be given proper directions ensuring the successful bearing of their

responsibility (King and Grace, 2005). IBM is associated with Internal Brand

Communication (IBC) to assure that the brand messages are effectively shared with

the employees through verbal and non-verbal ways (Lynch and De Chernatony, 2004).

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Claridge’s messages from 2014 delivered reactively by the employee and the

proactive on Twitter diverged. Therefore, there was a lack of internal communication

in the hotel. Management of IBC leads to coordinate the employee’s behaviour to the

corporation views, policies and values (De Chernatony and Segal-Horn, 2003). If

Claridge’s had implemented an adequate communication, it would have erased the

employees’ uncertainty towards the situation (Bordia et al, 2004). Plus, it would have

given a sense of unity between both responses to the client instead of a lack of

credibility and effectiveness from the proactive response as exposed before.

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Conclusion The purpose of this report was to determine if this hotel’s crisis was transient. After

determining the roots of the problem to an underperformance in Governance and

Citizenship as well as in Product and Services, it was highlighted that the risk was built

on the negative EWOM that greatly affected the stakeholders. In fact, the historic hotel

had not realised the impact of social media and was stuck in old communication ways,

leading to a poor proactive crisis management. Then, the many steps taken by

Claridge’s to restore its brand were presented with a common denominator: a new

digital strategy on the social media. Claridge’s account on the various platforms show

a bigger presence and accessibility to all users which helped the hotel to rebuild

relationships and its brand image. Also, this presence has helped to convey brand

awareness across every segments market and present its positioning concerning

families. After analysing the crisis at Claridge’s and the strategies implemented to

manage it afterwards, it is possible to conclude that this hotel’s crisis was transient

and does not affect the hotel’s reputation and image anymore.

Nevertheless, in order to avoid further risk to emanate, the hotel should focus on two

points. First, the 2014 risk wouldn’t have arisen if Claridge’s had been more attentive

to the social environment and demonstrated an ethical behaviour towards the

breastfeeding issue. Second, the hotel should be more involved in its internal brand

management and internal brand communication in order to make sure the employees

follow the brand values and promises. Although, this crisis did reveal the necessity of

change concerning the approach of internet power. Claridge’s is now very implicated

into its online communication which is not conveying the luxury status with the high

level of engagement. Therefore, the hotel should change to a low-level engagement

approach. Such a level of implication should have been taken in the 2014 proactive

response with an attendance strategy that could have proved Claridge’s engagement

in the dialog and reach out to the stakeholders.

This brand reputation risk brought negative outcomes through the protests and bad

publicity, but also positive ones as it showed the hotel’s need of change to follow the

society views or the rise of the online platforms.

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Appendices :

Appendix 1: RepTrack® Model

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Appendix 2 : Differences in Old and New Media

Appendix 3 : Divided Stakeholder’s opinion

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Appendix 4 : PR Apologies Tweets

Appendix 5 : Claridge’s new Digital Strategy

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Appendix 6 : Claridge’s new positioning

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