Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

If you’re unfamiliar with the term rescue marketing, it’s a marketing strategy used by some in the aftermath of any major disaster or event. Fundamentally, a rescue marketing strategy targets customers of companies affected by a disaster and attempts to lure them away while their current provider is unavailable.

One of the textbook cases of rescue marketing occurred in 2009. The server hosting company Rackspace ran into power issues in one of its data centers, causing significant service outages for its customers. Despite the trouble, Rackspace was a role model for transparency, updating its customers frequently and honestly about the issues they were having.

During their crisis, a whole host of competitors piled on, attempting to lure away Rackspace customers using the rescue marketing strategy.

A notable exception occurred when Rackspace competitor ServInt’s CEO Reed Caldwell came to the defense of Rackspace:...

[Timely post and debate with several good examples from Christopher Penn ~ Jeff]