Exploring crisis communications during a pandemic from a cruise marketing managers perspective: an application of construal level theory

ABSTRACT Crisis communications are vital to business in times of uncertainty because clear messaging inspires confidence, keeps stakeholders updated and will help companies continue to trade successfully. Recently, the COVID-19 crisis has challenged traditional communication practice in the cruise sector, highlighting the limitations of traditional crisis communications approaches. Applying Construal Level Theory, this study aims to consider psychological distance and construal levels in cruise practitioners messaging. The study relies on a qualitative research design. We interviewed 15 experts to understand how the industry communicates with travellers during a time of crisis. The data analysis adopts the Gioia method which uses a sensemaking and sense giving approach. This study’s contribution is threefold. First, we extend existing knowledge about crisis marketing communication practice by focusing on cruise practitioners’ instead of travellers’ perspectives. Second, we identify an additional temporal stage, which has not been previously considered by Construal Level Theory, to communicate with travellers. We label it, ‘critical crisis communication mid-point’. Third, we offer a preliminary practitioner-led conceptualization of managing crisis marketing communications for the cruise and other service industries.


Introduction
The cruise industry generates more than $150 billion per year in global activity and supports more than one million jobs (Cruise Lines International Association [CLIA], 2021) therefore, its impact on the global economy cannot be underestimated (CLIA, 2021). The effect of COVID-19 was a seismic jolt (Anand & Peterson, 2000) to the traditional communication practises employed by cruise line practitioners. As a result, communication practice evolved to fit the unprecedented context. Extant literature emanates from investigations about past crises which have challenged the cruise industry's crisis communication response, but usually from the traveller perspective (Avraham & Ketter, 2017;Liu-Lastres et al., 2018;Ryschka et al., 2016). There is scant understanding from a cruise practitioner stance. Hence the research objective for this study is, to explore the marketing communication practice of cruise operators during a crisis.
To do so, the present investigation embraces Construal Level Theory (CLT) Trope & Liberman, 2010). It explains the connection between psychological distance, in the form of temporal, space, social distance and hypotheticality, and consumers' concrete and abstract perceptions of an event under study (Trope & Liberman, 2010). We apply CLT to guide the qualitative investigation, because of its utility to both identify the varied temporal stages in a crisis communication strategy (when to communicate) and, the communication messages appropriate for each stage (what to communicate). Both aspects represent the decision areas that cruise practitioners must consider when devising a crisis marketing communication strategy. This theory, to the best of our knowledge, has not been applied to cruise crisis marketing communication practice, but it has strong potential to provide new insight.
The qualitative research design of this study uses semi-structured interviews with expert cruise sector practitioners operating at the time of the pandemic. This study's contribution is threefold. First, we extend existing literature about the cruise industry's current crisis marketing communication practice by moving away from the existing literature which focuses on the travellers' perspectives. Second, we uncover the critical crisis communication mid-point (CCCM) that requires the rethinking of the current binary process of communication (far-distal and near-distal and abstract/ concrete content) proposed by CLT. Failing to address the CCCM, passengers may not proceed from the far-distal to the near-distal stage even after the initial booking. Third, we offer a preliminary conceptualization of the management of crisis marketing communications for cruise industry practitioners and researchers.
The article is written as follows. Firstly, it presents a consideration of CLT theory. Secondly, the research design is discussed and supported with a table of verbatim comments from the participants and the findings are reviewed and discussed using the Gioia method (Gioia et al., 2013) to analyse the data set. Finally, a conclusion offers a summary, study limitations and suggestions for future research.

Crisis marketing communications in tourism sector
The tourism sector has incorporated crisis marketing communications in a variety of situations such as, to negate negative destination imagery (Avraham & Ketter, 2017), the aftermath of terrorism (Fall & Massey, 2006), rural tourism recovery (Ritchie et al., 2004) and environmental disasters (Pforr & Hosie, 2008). The recent challenges presented by the global pandemic reassert the significance of understanding the importance of crisis marketing communications to assist the tourism industry. COVID-19 contextual investigations have to date focused on safety communications (Neuburger & Egger, 2020;Quintal et al., 2021), public sentiment on cruise tourism (Lu & Zheng, 2020) passenger reassurance (Pappas, 2021;Radic, 2017), cleanliness and hygiene (Kaushal & Srivastava, 2021) social distancing procedures (Zheng et al., 2021) and destination loyalty (Woosnam et al., 2021). Crisis marketing communications during COVID-19 largely centred on health and safety to ensure the continued support of travellers and minimize cancellation or abandonment of travel plans (Villacé-Molinero et al., 2021). Crisis marketing communications during COVID-19 were significant to the cruise sector due to the confined environment onboard, the high infection rates and the extensive controversial coverage in the media (Holland et al., 2021). In addition, holiday decision-making involves high complexity levels, especially during periods of uncertainty and rapid change (Pappas, 2019). Therefore, appropriate crisis marketing communications are important to reassure travellers and improve managerial strategy.
A range of theories has guided the research and development of crisis marketing communication strategies including, framing theory (Waller & Iluzada, 2019), situational crisis communication theory (Coombs, 2006), social exchange theory (Roth-Cohen & Lahav, 2021) and utility theory (Volo, 2008). The on-going focus of literature concentrates apparently on consumer behaviour and from the traveller perspective, with many qualitative papers exploring cruise passenger perceptions including topics such as a child's viewpoint (Radic, 2017), cross-cultural perceptions of onshore guided tours (Buzova et al., 2016), risk perception from young cruise passengers (Le & Arcodia, 2018) and service quality (Yoon & Cha, 2020). In this paper, we deliberately move away from this focus by targeting the perspective of cruise practitioners. We apply CLT Trope & Liberman, 2010) to guide our investigation.

Construal level theory
CLT is a social psychology theory that explains the connection between psychological distance and an individual's attitude and behaviour about a forthcoming event (Liberman et al., 2007). Psychological distance can be defined as the individual's subjective perception of how close or far away an event is (Trope & Liberman, 2010). Bar-Anan et al. (2006) consider the four dimensions of CLT which are spatial, temporal, social and hypothetical, and validate that all four dimensions of psychological distance are linked to level of construal in a unique way. When events become psychologically closer, near-distal information about detailed specifics becomes more available and reliable. CLT suggests that people incorporate this information by engaging with a low-level construal focus, representing events in terms of their concrete and distinctive features (Liberman & Trope, 1998). However, when considering psychologically distant events often there is a lack of details and specifics in the information. These far-distal events require high-level construal defined as, 'relatively abstract, coherent and superordinate mental representations' (Trope & Liberman, 2010, p. 441). Abstract perceptions are simpler, less ambiguous, more coherent and more schematic than concrete perceptions (Fiske & Taylor, 1991;Smith, 1998).
The majority of CLT articles address a single dimension depending on the topic at stake (Grazzini et al., 2018;Pera et al., 2019). Table 1 shows key marketing crisis communication literature and emphasizes the majority focus on a single CLT dimension. Temporal distance perception shapes how people make sense of the events happening at different points in time, via either concrete or abstract cognitive processing, known as construals. In addition, it has been linked to consumers' confidence in materializing the goal/s planned for future events (Pennington & Roese, 2003). Consumers adopt a low-level concrete construal when they perceive an episode to be close in terms of temporal distance. In this low-level concrete construal, consumers seek information that 'promotes the how' which contextualizes information to convey feasibility and procedures (Chung & Chen, 2017;Liberman & Trope, 1998;Slepian et al., 2015). Conversely, an individual would opt for the high-level abstract construal when they perceive the same episode to be far-distal in terms of temporal distance (Fujita et al., 2008). In this case, consumers are suggested to focus more on less practical and intangible features which represent the abstract construal. At the abstract construal stage, consumers value de-contextualized information that provides desirability and outcome-focused information (Chung & Chen, 2017) focusing on the 'why' such as the motive of the holidays.

Application of CLT in tourism studies
CLT Trope & Liberman, 2010) has been used in tourism studies but typically in non-crisis contexts, for example, spatial distance was used to evaluate a destination's image (Chung & Chen, 2017). Temporal distance was applied to compare hedonic and utilitarian holiday types (Basoglu & Yoo, 2015), experience design (Bergs et al., 2020), effective tourism loyalty programmes (Song et al., 2017), pre-trip-planning (Tan, 2018) and post disaster camping trip plans (Craig et al., 2021). Furthermore, social distance was used to capture how tourism activity impacts travel experience sharing (Su et al., 2021), and both spatial and social distance were studied in community tourism planning (Lindblom et al., 2020). Table 1 provides a critical overview of this literature. Li et al. (2020), to the best of our knowledge, is the sole study to have applied CLT's dimension of psychological distance to understand the effects of COVID-19 on tourists' behavioural pattern. Li et al. (2020) conceptually illustrated that the binary domains of CLT offer a simple, easy-to-understand and practical approach to design a crisis communication content. Whilst insightful, this work has also revealed two limitations with regard to the communication utility of CLT. First, CLT considers abstract and concrete construals as two mutually-exclusive mental representations where consumers engage in one or the other. Second, CLT considers far and near-distals as two opposite stages that are independent of each other. It does not consider the possibility that a mid-point stage, intersecting between far and neardistals, may exist during a crisis. This mid-point stage may provide cruise practitioners with an opportunity to provide further crisis marketing communications along the temporal and construal continuum. Drawing on the discussion presented above, we seek to study 'when' and 'what' to communicate with cruise passengers during an unprecedented crisis.
Booking a cruise holiday represents the far and near-distals episodes of temporal distance (Aho, 2001;Ingram et al., 2017). In each temporal distance episode, passengers will expect different message content and this in turn will dictate how the crisis marketing communication should be designed. Due to the high-value nature (both emotionally and financially) of the cruise purchase (Bahja et al., 2019;Hung & Petrick, 2011) and the crisis context that this study investigates, the two binary temporal stages in CLT may not suffice. Therefore, the study may enrich the communication utility of CLT by considering additional touchpoints for cruise practitioners to interact with their passengers. In doing so, a granular approach to communicate with travellers may be more effective in an unprecedented crisis situation.

Research design
A qualitative research design was used in this empirical study to answer the research question, to explore the marketing communication practice of cruise operators during a crisis. The usefulness of qualitative research for investigations held during difficult contextual circumstances has been found to uncover timely and actionable data to inform findings (Vindrola-Padros et al., 2020). In addition, Teti et al. (2020) highlight a qualitative approach that provides insight into aspects of behaviour and perceptions as it permits researchers to focus on the 'when' and 'what', rather than concentrating on one narrow dimension (Miles & Huberman, 1994).
Applying a phenomenology approach allows researchers to explore both the descriptive and interpretive nature of their experiences from the qualitative data collected (Kirillova, 2018). In so doing, an insightful understanding of the practitioner's management of crisis marketing communications is uncovered. Using CLT Trope & Liberman, 2010) we examine the COVID-19 crisis marketing communication practises at far-distal (just after booking) and near-distal (just before departure), and investigate mid-point crisis marketing communications (in-between fardistal and near-distal) at a time of a pandemic.

Sample and data collection
The study adopts a purposive and referral sampling procedure. Participants were required to be cruise practitioners that currently hold or have held passenger-facing role/s in the cruise industry. We define passenger-facing as having the responsibilities or experiences of managing customer communications that encompass bookings related to cruise holidays (Indeed, 2021). The majority of the practitioners have marketing communication experience dealing with previous health epidemics such as SARs and Norovirus which is relevant to this investigation. Cruise practitioners that met the criteria were invited for an interview; and after each interview, the participant was asked if s/he would recommend a colleague or contact that might be interested in taking part in the research project. This snowballing technique continued until 15 practitioners were recruited (see Table 2). Strauss and Corbin (2015) and Guest et al. (2006) assert a final sample size for qualitative work hinges upon the emergence of data saturation (i.e. the point at which no new relevant information emerges). In this study, the data saturation occurred at interview 15. Together the participants represented over 400 years of industry experience and expertise and held senior or executive positions (MDs, CEOs, VPs). The participants in the sample represented travel sector companies with the largest market share worldwide (Statista, 2020) including hospitality and aviation and an Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) board member (the UK's leading association of travel agents and tour operators).
Over the period September 2020 to December 2020, researchers undertook 15 semi-structured interviews. The date is significant because there were no cruise sailings in the UK and the date for the UK industry to restart was unclear. The study is not intended to provide longitudinal data, rather to allow for a range of observations about how the cruise practitioners managed crisis marketing communications at a time of global pandemic. This method of data collection gives an extraordinary voice to those actors experiencing the phenomenon (Gioia et al., 2013). This data set enabled a rich understanding about the crisis marketing communication practice of cruise industry operators during the COVID-19 pandemic. A number of verbatim comments from the participants were selected to support the validity of the findings.

Coding procedure
Using a sensemaking and sense-giving approach suggested by Gioia et al. (2013) the researchers analysed the data in three stages (see Table 3). During the first stage, the researchers coded the data independently. This involved reading and re-reading the interview scripts and diary notes to manually organize the data into 1st-order themes including booking procedures and health and safety protocols about COVID-19.
After completing the 1st order coding, the researchers discussed the participant interview scripts and the emerging categories as a team. The researchers agreed that the results converged into the three order themes with no outliers. Respondents whose roles were directly linked to marketing and sales (P4, P12 and P15) provided more commentary concentrating on reaffirming purchase decisions, communications that build excitement, and sustaining the holiday dream. Interestingly, respondents with a more strategic managerial role, such as MDs and VPs (P3, P5, P7, P8, P10, P13 and P14), offered a broader perspective of the crisis situation discussing flexible booking policies and communications about testing and embarkation.
Next, the researchers completed a 2nd order analysis, where the discussion concentrated on the links between the 1st order coding and the existing literature about the phenomenon. This allowed for new patterning of broader concepts and understanding to evolve from the data and novel theoretical insights to be uncovered (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991). This stage led to eight 2nd order themes emerging: Communicating flexible booking policy; Transparent communications; Communications about health and safety; Communications reaffirming purchase decision; Communications that build  'We are adapting to COVID, but we also communicate we're able to deliver the amazing experience that you've bought and you're expecting from us' (P13) (Abstract)

Transparent communications
'The ethos of our communication is to soften the statutory approach tone. We use a tone for someone who's going on a holiday not the tone of someone who's going to get their appendix removed' (P10) (Abstract) 'The message we send is-these are not normal times. You will have a good holiday but these are the adapted processes in place for you' (P1)  'We're very specific about our ambition for testing, before anybody gets onboard. We explain the plan to have everybody tested before they get onboard. We try to give the guests as much information as you can' (P3) (Concrete) 'We remind people of their allocated time to come to the because we don't want everyone arriving at the same time' (P7) (Concrete) 'We educate the consumer gradually with pretty pictures, they have to arrive, knowing what their role is because their role is greater than it's been in the past. But they also need to arrive, understanding that their safety and security is paramount to us' (P10) (Concrete)

Communications about testing, & embarkation
Communicating to remind about COVID Health and safety 'Of course, the key messages have been obviously health and safety. So everybody wants to know about the protocols, you know post -COVID but what we have to remember is that pre-COVID, that the cruise industry was exceptionally good at all these health and safety protocols' (P14) (Concrete) 'We keep in touch with that passenger and probably more so than you do right now' (P10) (Concrete) 'We communicate a combination of excitement this is what we are doing don't need to worry we have it all under control' (P1) (Abstract) 'The final stage and we haven't had anyone depart yet in this period we reiterate the reassurance message and around all the protocols everything that we're doing. So, people feel comfortable and confident about the choice they made and about progressing with their holiday' (P7) (Concrete)

Reassurance
'I think people are recognizing that way we care and we were actually, you know, just trying to do the best thing for customers and keep them informed' (P8) (Concrete) 'Still, even at this stage I think it is still reassurance all the way along' (P2) (Concrete) excitement; Innovating communications with technology to nurture familiarity with ship personal; Communications to sustain the cruise holiday dream; Communications about testing & embarkation and reassurance.
The third stage of the coding process allowed the researchers the opportunity to aggregate the 2nd-order themes into two 3rd order aggregated concepts: Communicating COVID-19 policy in detail; building a unique familial relationship between crew, directors and passengers and communicating to remind about COVID-19 Health and safety. The aggregated concepts form a conceptualization to provide an explanation about the crisis marketing communication practice of cruise operators during a time of pandemic crisis at far-distal, CCCM and near-distal points.

Findings
The research uncovered the 'when' and 'what' to communicate with cruise passengers during the unprecedented crisis from a practitioner's perspective. In terms of 'when' we identify three timeframes, far-distal (just after booking), near-distal (just before departure) and towards near-distal. The third phase which we label as the CCCM represents a unique finding of our work. The communication utility of CCCM, along with far-and near-distal stages, is discussed next.

Far-distal: communicating COVID-19 policy in detail
At this temporal stage messaging was very focused and transparent and the following themes emerged: communicating flexible booking policy; transparent communications and communications about health and safety. The aim was to provide passengers with accurate and up-to-date information about what was expected to happen. When the interviews took place, the industry was under government restrictions and waiting for further instructions about operating and therefore, the focus was on offering flexibility in procedures. For example, due to the uncertainty of how COVID-19 would unravel, flexible booking conditions included offering date changes and cancellations so passengers could alter their departure dates/destinations or not travel at all.
In addition, the cruise operators were working hard to understand how COVID-19 would impact their scheduled sailings and the type of operational protocols and guidelines needed to protect their passengers and crew. Many operators recruited specialist medical advisory teams who at this early stage were providing initial guidance to possible strategies that would be needed for safe travel. Indeed, one practitioner said, This is what passengers should know, this is our current health and safety protocol. However, things could change (P5). Therefore, at this far-distal stage the narrative was at a low construal level (concrete-focused) and included an introduction to health and safety guidance for those who were due to travel.

Critical crisis communication mid-point (CCCM): building a unique familial relationship between crew, directors and passengers
We identify an additional communications stage, CCCM, as towards near-distal. The marketing practitioners revealed the extraordinary complexities in crisis marketing communications required during the pandemic uncovering the following themes: communications reaffirming purchase decision; communications that build excitement; innovating communications with technology to nurture familiarity with ship personnel and communicating to sustain the cruise holiday dream. At this new temporal stage, a spike in high construal level (abstract-focused) messaging was evident. A different tone of communications was utilized to help build a community/familial bond between the cruise companies and the passengers, illustrated by one practitioner, what we really wanted to communicate is, through these dark times that we're all experiencing in our personal lives is that we do genuinely care. We genuinely want to do the right thing (P12).
During this period (Autumn 2020), many people were working from home and were still experiencing limited human interactions. Cruise practitioners used this confinement to innovate their communications with digital technologies to bring the cruising experience into passengers' homes. The technology enabled senior management to build a rapport with their passengers, I advised I was available to customers, we wanted to show that we cared from me down, everyone cared and was available (P8).
Another strategy at the CCCM is introducing integrated digital technology. Technology had not previously been part of the communications process but was viewed as critical in order to display a variety of complex messages to convey genuine concern and engage with prospective travellers during the crisis. Many cruise operators recorded video messages explaining what they were doing to ensure travellers safety and how much they appreciated their passengers' loyalty. Digitized video messages were also conveyed from the ships' crews to highlight the on-going preparations to ensure passenger safety and to capture the crew's excitement and anticipation for sailing in the future. An additional novel approach was to move the onboard quiz nights online. During the crisis, technology enabled these to be virtual experiences, with the cruise directors running the events and passengers taking part from home. Such occasions were critical to recreate the onboard experience and keep the cruise trip alive in the minds of passengers.
Although there was a significant increase in high-level abstract focused messages practitioners also sent some low-level construal (concrete-focused) messaging at the CCCM. Typical communications provided up-to-date information with clear detailed directives as one practitioner stated, Mid-way reassurance, safety, yes you can have your trips but this is going to be carefully gauged and carefully monitored (P2). There was still the option for passengers to cancel or amend their bookings to provide them with the peace of mind that they could change their cruise.
The research shows that this newly discovered CCCM was pivotal in the communication approach during the crisis. Tactics included using new strategies at a much higher frequency than before the pandemic and provided low construal level (concrete-focused) advice about how risks have been mitigated and onboard protocols. Additionally, communication approaches were innovated by applying new digital technologies. The video-conferencing technology enables face-to-face-conversations with onboard crews and management. In so doing, it engages and uplifts higher construal level (abstract-focused) messaging during this time of uncertainty.

Near-distal: communicating to remind about COVID-19 health and safety
Our research shows that at this near-distal stage messaging is low construal level (concrete-focused) and the following 2nd order sub-themes emerged: communications about testing and embarkation and reassurance. The communications provide practical detail about the embarkation process and testing expectations. The aim is to ensure passengers would feel confident on what they would need to do and the safety procedures they should follow. The level of detail was expected by the cruise marketing practitioners to be more explicit as the industry followed industry policy and directives.

Discussion
We set out, to explore the marketing communication practice of cruise operators during a crisis, particularly about 'when' and 'what' to communicate with passengers. We contribute to the current literature as follows. First, we draw upon the perspectives of practitioners instead of travellers, the typical focus of previous studies on crisis communication. Second, previous tourism studies about the utility of CLT in crisis marketing communication are scarce. We consider the combined utility of the temporal distance (far-versus near-distal) and construal levels (concrete versus abstract) discussed in CLT Trope & Liberman, 2010) to suggest varied communication designs. That is, at the far-distal episode messaging is at a low construal level (concrete-focused). Usually, at this temporal stage CLT states that messaging would be de-contextualized, desirable and therefore abstract . However, in this present study's crisis context, findings reveal marketing communication to be low-level construal (concrete) which challenges existing CLT knowledge.
Third, we identify another temporal point (CCCM) that is not considered by CLT which intersects between far-and near-distals. This mid-point is about increasing abstract-focused messages to travellers, in order to build passenger confidence and instil holiday excitement. CCCM challenges the typical thinking that high construal level (abstract focus) would decrease and low construal level (concrete focus) would increase (Fujita et al., 2008) as the crisis marketing communication strategy moved toward the near-distal phase. CCCM suggests the necessity of abstract-focused communications to 'propel' the transition from the far-to near-distal (temporal) stages in an unprecedented crisis like COVID-19. Given that travellers are likely to experience a gamut of negative feelings (e.g. uncertainty and fear) (Li & Zhao, 2021), they may either postpone or cancel their travel plan and thus never progress from the post-booking (far-distal) and near-to-departure (near-distal) stages as originally planned. Our work shows that CCCM is necessary to mitigate the postponement or cancellation possibility experienced by travellers.

Theoretical contribution
The present study makes three contributions to the current literature on crisis communication. First, we extend the literature on crisis communication marketing by investigating cruise practitioners' perspectives regarding, 'when' and 'what' to communicate with travellers during an unprecedented crisis. Our work enriches the existing literature with industry and practice-oriented insights. Second, we contribute to the CLT research and its utility in crisis communication strategies by identifying an additional dimension that we call CCCM. Our findings suggest that communicating with travellers during an unprecedented crisis on far-and near-distal stages is insufficient, considering that between these two stages travellers are likely to experience a gamut of negative emotions and subsequently change or abandon their initial decisions (Li & Zhao, 2021). We enrich the application of CLT to crisis communication contexts by introducing the CCCM, a mid-point that is necessary to communicate with and progress travellers from the far-and near-distals. Third, we offer a preliminary conceptualization ( Figure 1) of crisis marketing communications, grounded in practitioners' perspectives and CLT, which we encourage researchers and practitioners to explore in other service settings.

Practical implications
This study has two key practical implications for cruise practitioners. First, this study emphasizes that crisis messaging needs to be high-frequency low-level construal (concrete-focused) throughout the continuum. Second, the CCCM is an additional communication touchpoint that cruise practitioners should consider to sustain travellers' planned holiday during an unprecedented crisis.

Limitations and a future research agenda
The qualitative insights provided in this study are original and practical but not conclusive, and thus should be considered with several limitations in mind. First, only the temporal dimension of CLT was considered in this work but we believe a fruitful future research direction could consider the other three psychological distances to understand the utility of CLT more fully. Second, the data were collected from a small group of top-level UK-based cruise professionals. Whilst every effort was made to recruit a broad representation of cruise practitioners with different backgrounds, the cruise sector is vast and interconnected in nature. It is likely that we have missed certain practitioners that are indirectly linked to the cruise sector. Thirdly, research could build on the insights of crisis communications presented by this study to design and deliver traveller pleasurable sensory experiences (Chun, 2011). Fourthly, the work was limited to the UK only thus constraining the impact of the findings to a single country. Finally, it was a one-point-in-time investigation providing just a snapshot of the situation at the time.
Limitations notwithstanding, the novel theoretical insight and identification of CCCM is a significant development in tourism theory and practice which leads to a consideration of future research areas. First, future research could consider a broader and more diverse sample of practitioners from across the globe including additional sectors from the travel and tourism industry for example aviation and tour operators. Second, as COVID-19 evolves, future research could consider a longitudinal approach to monitor crisis marketing communications.

Data availability statement
Data not available due to ethical restrictions.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval statement
Ethics approval by University of Portsmouth Ethics Committee approval number: BAL/2018/E523/ SHARPLES.