When Online Opportunity meets Corporate Structure

Kenny Hyder made us all shake our heads. How could St. Regis Resort have made such an online marketing mistake? But all of reading this blog knew we had made our own online marketing mistakes along the way...

The in-depth story would be asking St. Regis Resort management how their huge online marketing opportunity was squandered. Or perhaps, their top level executives wouldn't acknowledge an opportunity lost?

As the CEO of St. Regis Resort learns about this blog article from a phone call, he or she might stroll down the hallway looking for the Director of Marketing. Will the CEO be polite, or a little surly? After all, what did all of top level management at St. Regis Resort discuss in their meetings on how to maximize their movie exposure in "Eden's Retreat"? Were they all involved in under utilizing a marketing goldmine?

How will St. Regis Resort upper management respond to this marketing opportunity? It still is an opportunity, isn't it? How would your company respond under a marketing crisis?

Will there be intransigence, firings, or adaptation?

Intransigence: Management under stress can hunker down and wait for bad publicity to dissipate. Everything happened as planned. There was no problem.

Firings: Sadly, this is an alternative in crisis. (I wouldn't want to be fired from Paradise.)

Adaptation: The company missed a huge opportunity. But as of today according to Aaron Wall's keyword suggestion tool, Couples Retreat had 1578 + 529 searches on the internet yesterday. There are still online marketing opportunities for the company.

Kenny Hyder was correct. Bora Bora blew it.

The real question remains. When the marketing spotlight is on one of your company's mistakes, how will your company respond?