A strong marketing campaign can get people through your door, on to your website or on to your high speed commuter train in the case of Eurostar, but your service while they are there is just as much a part of your marketing as any creative work you do (or contract out) leading up to that moment. Eurostar failed miserably to address this aspect of their marketing when their fleet underwent a significant failure involving five trains in the Chunnel. (For you North Americans unfamiliar with this term it’s like a huge underground drug tunnel you’d find from Mexico to Texas or from  BC to Washington State only for normal people and trains). The failure earlier today left thousands wondering exactly what was happening and as passengers and their loved ones waiting in London became increasingly unimpressed with the lack of communication from  Eurostar, they began to twitter up a storm. Like trapped killer bees just itching to burst out of the hive the stranded passengers railed against the transportation company while quite surprisingly the PR team at Eurostar were oddly silent. Eurostar is recognized as having a slick PR and Marketing track record so one would imagine that they would have been able to deal with this ad hoc pretty well. Not the case.

This may be a classic example of when great PR and Marketing depends on a perfect set of circumstances and when confronted with a monkey wrench in the machine it all falls apart. Marketing is service, service is PR, when you are a service provider they are the holy trinity of your brand and company culture. The business culture of your company needs to back up the gloss and sweet talk with appropriate communication and attention to your most valuable asset- THE CUSTOMER. I am shocked and appalled that Eurostar could drop the ball so badly with this and I am pleased as punch to see that social media once again has put a massive company and its public relations machine on its heels when its service failed to live up to its marketing. I have stressed this so many times, service is where you knock it out of the park after marketing and PR tee it up for you. Eurostar needs to take a long hard look at what has happened here and seriously address the bumbling response it gave to the crisis, because their competitors are likely drooling like Hyenas right now.  The company has apparently withdrawn its existing marketing campaign and is reassessing how to move forward in 2010.  Best of luck Eurostar, while you might have withdrawn your marketing strategy but I would wager to say the problem lies in your communications and your service itself. Incorporating your service and your company culture into your marketing plans may serve you well moving forward.  It’s OK for machines to break down once in a while, people understand that, but a communications breakdown is much harder to forgive.

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Tags: brand, company culture, Eurostar, marketing campaign, public relations, Social Media, trains in the Chunnel, Twitter, underground drug tunnel

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