Risk and Crisis Communication Case Study of American Airlines Twitter Crisis Communication, USA

Along with digitalization, the brand voice has found an important role in branding. However, in the face of crisis, many brands fail to stick to their brand voice and use an impersonal tone. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a case of the airline industry that faced a backlash on Twitter for being outright racist and discriminatory. 

The qualitative and exploratory research design was applied based on content analysis of various media reports and Twitter tweets. Conclusions were drawn based on the inferences that revealed the brand voice and communication strategy in the organization’s tweets and leaders’ responses. This case study further discovers that the organizations need to align the brand voice with its original brand voice even during a crisis to maintain the brand image. This analysis thus helps in understanding the need of selecting an appropriate brand voice so that it can be used even during a crisis.