Boeing 737 Max: Rebuilding Trust
Comprehensive case study for testing the full Comms Threader cascade.
The Scenario: January 2024. A door plug blows out mid-flight on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max. Boeing's crisis, which began with two fatal crashes in 2018-2019, has never ended. The company faces regulatory scrutiny, whistleblower allegations, and a public that no longer trusts its safety claims. The question is not "what should Boeing say" but "can communications work at all when operational credibility is broken?"
Why This Case Study Exists
This comprehensive brief demonstrates what Comms Threader can do with complex, real-world communications challenges. A genuine dilemma with competing stakeholder needs, eroded trust, and no easy messaging fix.
The Core Problem: This is not a reputation problem. It is a licence-to-operate problem. Boeing cannot talk its way back to trust when the same aircraft is still flying and quality failures continue. Every safety message reminds stakeholders why they stopped trusting in the first place.
Use this case study to:
- Explore how Comms Threader handles communications complexity
- See the tools work through a real stakeholder trust crisis
- Understand what "good input" looks like for optimal results
- Test the full cascade: Story, Audience, Message, Plan, Frame
Download the Files
The Boeing case study includes five documents that provide the complete strategic context:
| File | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Boeing 737 Max Comms Brief | The primary communications brief covering background, the crisis timeline, stakeholder landscape, objectives, and success criteria. | Download DOCX |
| Stakeholder Research | Comprehensive stakeholder analysis: regulators, airlines, passengers, employees, investors, and media. | Download DOCX |
| Media Reputation Analysis | Media sentiment tracking, narrative analysis, and coverage patterns across the crisis timeline. | Download DOCX |
| Brand Trust Tracker | Multi-year trust and reputation data showing Boeing's decline across safety perception and stakeholder trust. | Download XLSX |
| Media Sentiment Data | Quantitative media sentiment scores, coverage volume, and narrative framing data across key crisis moments. | Download XLSX |
How to Use This Case Study
Step 1: Download All Files
Grab all five documents from the table above. You will need the comms brief plus the supporting research to get the full picture.
Step 2: Create a New Project
From the hub, create a new pitch and give it a name (e.g. "Boeing Trust Rebuild"). Set the organisation name to Boeing. Choose Global as the region. Upload the Boeing 737 Max Comms Brief. The Story will extract the stated brief, stakeholder context, and validated insights from the document.
Step 3: Work Through the Cascade
When you create a new pitch from the hub, your inputs cascade through all five tools automatically. Progress through each tool in sequence. Watch how The Story's challenge reframe influences The Audience's stakeholder mapping, which shapes The Message's position statement, which informs The Plan's direction, which feeds into The Frame's communications framework.
Step 4: Upload Research at Each Stage
Upload the Stakeholder Research and Media Reputation Analysis when you reach The Audience. Use the Brand Trust Tracker and Media Sentiment Data when you get to The Message. Each tool extracts different insights from the same research, so uploading at the right stage produces sharper outputs.
Step 5: Reference the Data as You Go
Open the research files alongside the tools so you understand what information you are feeding Comms Threader. The trust tracker shows why Boeing cannot lead with safety rhetoric. The media sentiment data reveals how each new incident resets the trust clock.
What You'll Discover
The brief goes deeper than "fix Boeing's reputation". It is a genuine communications dilemma:
- The Story will surface that this is a licence-to-operate problem, not a reputation problem, and that every safety message reinforces the very narrative Boeing is trying to escape
- The Audience will identify regulators as the priority stakeholder, caught between needing to appear tough on Boeing and needing Boeing to succeed for global aviation
- The Message will explore whether "earned through evidence, not asserted through messaging" creates a defensible communications position
- The Plan will synthesise whether a withdrawal from proactive safety messaging is strategically viable, or whether silence creates its own risk
- The Frame will generate narrative territories that let third parties carry Boeing's story instead of Boeing speaking for itself
The Test: Can Comms Threader find a communications path for an organisation whose biggest problem is that every attempt to communicate about safety reminds people why they do not trust it? Or will it conclude that communications cannot fix an operational failure?
What Comms Threader Actually Generated
When tested with the full Boeing research package, Comms Threader produced sophisticated strategic outputs across the entire cascade. Here is what the tools generated:
Narrative Territory Options (The Frame)
After synthesising inputs from all four upstream tools, The Frame generated multiple viable narrative territories. Each territory was assessed across three dimensions (Stretch, Believability, Growth) and positioned on a risk/reward perception map:
| Territory | Assessment | Strategic Profile |
|---|---|---|
| The Open Book | Medium stretch, High believability, High growth | Radical transparency with regulators and media. Publish quality data. Invite independent audits. Make the factory floor visible. |
| The Engineers' Company AI Recommended |
High stretch, High believability, Medium growth | Recentre the narrative on Boeing's 170,000 engineers. Let the people who build aircraft speak about what has changed, without corporate framing. |
| The Long Fix Sweet Spot |
Low stretch, High believability, Medium growth | Explicitly frame recovery as a decade-long process. Reject quick-fix narratives. Set public milestones and report against them. Optimal risk/reward for an organisation with eroded credibility. |
| Third-Party Validation | Medium stretch, Medium believability, High growth | Let regulators, airlines, and independent auditors carry the narrative. Boeing creates conditions for others to confirm change, not to assert it. |
The Territory Perception Map visualised each option's position across Narrative Aspiration (x-axis) vs Stakeholder Perception (y-axis), identifying three zones: Promising (high risk/reward), Balanced (sweet spot), and Safe (low risk/growth).
Multiple viable paths: Comms Threader does not give you one answer. It maps the strategic possibility space. Three to four territories had genuine strategic value. The "correct" choice depends on organisational capability, risk appetite, and conviction. The AI recommends, but you decide as the strategist.
Comms Readiness Check
Before generating the comms plan, The Frame ran a comprehensive strategic audit of the entire 5-tool cascade, scoring 71% - "Presentation Ready with Fixes":
| Dimension | Assessment | Key Finding |
|---|---|---|
| Brief Alignment | Strong | Strategy directly addresses the core challenge: how does Boeing communicate when communication itself is the problem? |
| Coherence | Strong | Clear logical flow from problem reframe to stakeholder tension to message position to direction to framework. No contradictions. |
| Differentiation | Good | "The Long Fix" territory is genuinely differentiated from typical corporate crisis communications. Most companies promise quick recovery; this embraces patience. |
| Deliverability | Needs Work | Boeing's current operational reality (ongoing quality failures, production caps) makes any communications strategy fragile. The strategy acknowledges this but cannot solve it. |
| Evidence Base | Critical Gaps | The "independently verified operational data" that underpins The Open Book territory does not yet exist in sufficient form. Strategy depends on Boeing creating the evidence before communicating about it. |
The check also provided:
- Key vulnerability: Strategy assumes Boeing can sustain operational improvement long enough for evidence to accumulate. Any new incident resets the clock.
- Strongest element: The stakeholder tension analysis correctly identifies the regulator's impossible position as the strategic leverage point.
- Recommended fix: Add a "circuit breaker" protocol to the communications plan that specifies exactly what Boeing says (and does not say) when the next incident occurs.
The Golden Thread
The cascade produced a coherent strategic throughline:
Problem: This is not a reputation problem. It is a licence-to-operate problem. Boeing cannot talk its way back to trust when the same aircraft is still flying and quality failures continue.
Tension: Regulators must be seen as tough on Boeing to prove they are not a captured regulator, yet they need Boeing to succeed because the global aviation system depends on two viable aircraft manufacturers.
Message: For an industry that needs Boeing to function, Boeing earns the right to operate by proving change through evidence, not by asserting it through messaging.
Direction: Withdraw from proactive safety messaging and let independently verified operational data, regulatory milestones, and engineering transparency speak on Boeing's behalf.
Framework: Replace safety rhetoric with visible, verifiable proof of systemic change that others can confirm.
Key Learning Points
Communications cannot substitute for operational change
Boeing's case is the clearest demonstration that messaging without evidence is worse than silence. The tools surfaced this honestly, flagging deliverability as a critical weakness rather than pretending communications alone could solve the problem.
The strategic confidence score tells the truth
A 71% score with red flags on deliverability and evidence is honest assessment, not failure. It tells you exactly where the strategy is vulnerable and what needs fixing before presenting it.
Stakeholder tension is the strategic leverage point
The Audience tool identified that the regulator's impossible position, needing to punish Boeing while needing it to survive, creates the strategic opportunity. That insight shaped everything downstream.
Try It Yourself
Download the files, create a new project, and run the full cascade. Compare your outputs with the analysis above. Your results will differ based on your inputs and decisions, which is the point. The tools scaffold your thinking; they do not replace it.