A basic rule of crisis communication is that you should openly address things that are going wrong. One institution that has taken this to heart is Deutsche Bahn. Whether the beer in the on-board bistro runs out shortly after Hanover or the train has to make an unscheduled stop at the Königs Wusterhausen signal box – rail passengers are informed by announcement whether they are interested or not. The success seems to be moderate. Anger about the train determines a large part of the posts on social media, most recently the French actress Julie Delpy complained in several posts on Instagram about a delayed train to Stuttgart (“What a shit show!”).
For some time now, Deutsche Bahn has been using a new strategy: humour. Announcements by the railway staff like to sound like this, as you can read on the “Bahn-Anmessen” Twitter account: “I can tell you that you are not in Germany’s largest sardine can, but in the RB 26 to Mainz main station.” In the social media, jokes are also cut out at a rate that one would wish for some train connections. Recently, for example, when the message circulated that a passenger had blocked the doors of an ICE for minutes because he was waiting for a pizza delivery. That’s pretty funny in itself, but the railway upped the ante by tweeting: “His order: Quattro Endstagioni”.
Loosely based on Heinz Erhardt: And another joke! The BVG has practically cultivated crisis communication through bad jokes.
(Photo: Sabine Brose/Sorge/imago images)
Since Freud we have known that humor is always a good way to distance oneself from the situation, i.e. trains that are late, overcrowded or blocked. However, it also reaches its limits, as can be observed with the Berlin transport company. A few years ago, the BVG invented constant jokes as a crisis communication strategy, so to speak. “I don’t care” was sung in an image video, and anyone who complains about delays on social media gets the answer: “We just wanted you to see more of Berlin.” The slogan of the BVG should also be funny, it reads “Because we love you”. However, this has made one thing clear to many people: You don’t necessarily want to come into contact with this kind of love.