Royal Caribbean has a port-of-call in Haiti and is doing a number of things to help in the earthquake relief effort. But you’d never know that from the company’s homepage. As of Friday afternoon it was still all blue skies and good times as far as the eye could see.
To people who know the company’s connection to Haiti, the absence of any acknowledgment of the catastrophe on the home page – the company’s doorstep to the world – sends a chill.
Perception matters.
If you’re an organization that’s doing something to help Haiti, you should make it easy for your customers and stakeholders to find out – not because you’re a publicity hound, but because people might think you’re doing nothing if they don’t quickly see evidence to the contrary.
Royal Caribbean issued a press release Friday afternoon outlining its humanitarian response, and it’s substantial. It includes a pledge of at least $1 million in relief and deliveries of goods and supplies.
To get the news, however, you had to visit the Press Center, a Web site backwater for journalists and PR types.
Fail.
There was also some interesting information about the relief response in Royal Caribbean CEO’s Adam Goldstein’s blog, called WHY NOT? This blog is clearly linked from the company’s home page, but gives no indication that it’s a place for news on Haiti.
Fail.
In social media, the company’s Twitter site spouts only blurbs about the latest screamin’ deals, while its YouTube site airs commercials.
Fail.
The company’s facebook fan page carries the CEO’s blog posts. Again, some good stuff about Haiti, but nothing on the home page to indicate you’ll find it there.
My family and I, and many thousands of others, stepped on the soil of Haiti thanks to a Royal Caribbean cruise. It wasn’t exactly a cultural immersion. Port-of-call Labadee is a self-contained, private enclave for cruise ship passengers.
Still, as someone who had that experience – and who thinks highly of Royal Caribbean – I went to their Web site eager to see what the company was doing in response to the earthquake.
I saw nothing.
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