This quote from a young Haitian man featured in an Associated Press article headline describes his and his country’s dependence on tourists to meet their basic survival needs. Those needs have existed for years, but were profoundly exacerbated when the 7.0-magnitude earthquake befell his country last month.

Certainly, life is fragile. As Abraham Maslow introduced with his Hierarchy of Needs, the most basic level of human existence is based on meeting needs necessary for survival. This includes the need for water, air, food and sleep. Many Haitians never took those needs for granted and since the earthquake hit, those needs have been severely magnified.

Three days after the earthquake, one of the largest foreign investors in Haiti, Royal Caribbean Cruises, detailed its plans to help. With a solid corporate social responsibility framework already in place, the global cruise line launched its relief program and announced a minimum of $1 million in humanitarian aid. The company coordinated with its existing charitable partners Food for the Poor, Pan American Development Foundation, in addition to its own Haitian foundation, the Solano Foundation.

Royal Caribbean laid out its plans to continue cruise ship calls to its private beach in Labadee, Haiti, complete with deliveries of food, water and other necessary provisions on each stop. The brand outlined how it would support its Haitian employees and their families, and how its cruise guests could contribute to the cause. On top of all that, a Haitian United Nations representative endorsed Royal Caribbean’s plans and fully supported the continuation of cruise ship calls, highlighting their positive economic benefits for the country.

Royal Caribbean covered its bases, activated existing crisis protocols, engaged with its charity partners and committed significant financial support to the cause. The brand put its commitment to Haiti into action.

But more proactive stakeholder engagement and education was needed. Even with all the efforts to do the right thing, the cruise line’s reputation came under fire when people learned calls to Labadee would continue. As in any highly-emotional situation, critics jumped to conclusions because they simply didn’t have the proper context, they didn’t know the whole story.

Mainstream news organizations reported the information, which elicited a very negative response with many comments on mainstream online news outlets. Bloggers and advocacy groups criticized the company. Pictures were painted of tourists lounging on the private beach sipping pina coladas and jet skiing while just 60 miles away people suffered in Port-au-Prince.

This tragic situation reinforces the important role a sensitive, responsible and quick 360-degree stakeholder engagement strategy is to sustaining corporate reputation, especially in highly-emotional scenarios. It’s a reminder that even when great measures are taken to do the right thing, unfortunately doing the right thing often isn’t enough to protect reputation.

Not only do crisis protocols need to be in place, polished and ready to activate at any minute, an organization’s plan must include immediate steps to inform all of its important stakeholder groups of what it’s doing and why it’s doing it to mitigate any misinformation or ill-informed opinions that may be formed simply due to lack of awareness.

There are those who saw the bigger picture and defended the brand. They pointed to the very important role Royal Caribbean and its competitors actually play in facilitating the kind of sustainable tourism that will help a developing nation like Haiti not only recover from this tragedy, but actually grow stronger for the future.

Arthur Applbaum, a Harvard professor of ethics, told the Associated Press that while it shows … “moral sensitivity to be disturbed by the thought that one is vacationing on the beach when others are suffering nearby … it also shows insufficient moral reflection to think that proximity makes a moral difference. The people of Haiti are suffering whether you take your beach vacation in the Dominican Republic or in Hawaii,” he said, “and it is a failure of the moral imagination not to be equally troubled in Waikiki.”

In emotionally-charged situations, brands must take into account the big picture, while remaining exceptionally sensitive to extreme tragedy. The young Haitian man’s quote, “Without this, we don’t eat,” puts everything into perspective. This is the point around which Royal Caribbean’s decision to continue responsible Labadee port calls with a heavy emphasis on aid to Haiti must be based upon. It is the most basic level of human need and is a huge opportunity for the brand not only to deliver aid in this time of tragedy, but also to take the lead role in building a stronger future for Haiti and its people.

Matt Averitt can be reached at maveritt@mww.com

maveritt Crisis Communications, CSR Crisis Communication, CSR, Haiti

When dealing with a crisis, the best-case scenario is that no one ever hears about. That takes some real savvy and some seriously mercy from the crisis gods. But equally impressive, the company with the hottest, most buzzed-about toy for the holidays was able to put an end to a crisis assailing the toy’s safety just a few weeks before Christmas with little notice and no discernable damage.

A BusinessWeek story last week recounted the behind-the-scenes action of how Cepia, maker of the Zhu Zhu Hamster (what happened to Legos?), mitigated an issue that if handled less swiftly could have exploded into something much more devastating if not terminal for the company.

I won’t detail the play-by-play in the article, but a quick synopsis: A consumer product safety group claimed that the hamsters were unsafe. As it turned out, the safety group did not apply the same and arguably more rigorous methodologies that the federal government does for product testing. Cepia fired back with its own safety analysis conducted by independent testing organizations, proving the product safety. The government, after review, came down on the side of Cepia. The safety group retracted its claim and vowed to reform its testing. The issue that started on Friday was over by Monday.

Some of the key elements for this successful outcome, besides of course having the government on Cepia’s side, were decisiveness and swiftness. Sometimes, you have to make a quick call on what to do and what message to articulate. Then, you go do it. That’s what Cepia did. Prolonged meetings in stuffy board rooms trying to play out every scenario quickly reach a point of diminishing returns. It makes a lot of executives uncomfortable, but in some crises, you exist in a miasma of uncertainty. The best leaders (and crisis managers) can cope with that uncertainty, like it or not, and do the best they can with the information available.

Mike Sacks can be reached at msacks@mww.com.

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