The Flyover, the Sponsor and a Pr Moment Worth Studying

There is a moment in the career of almost every public relations agency or communications team when years of representing a client are tested by something no one could reasonably have anticipated in the communications calendar. A competitor makes an unexpected move, a story suddenly dominates public conversation, a sponsorship becomes relevant in a way nobody planned, or an ordinary event develops into an extraordinary communications opportunity. At that point, the value of the communications team is not measured by what it had scheduled to publish that afternoon, but by whether it understands what has just happened and can make the right move while the opportunity still matters.

For the communications professionals responsible for FlySafair’s Springbok sponsorship, the recent Airlink stadium flyover presented exactly the kind of moment worth studying.

Airlink’s aircraft over the stadium created what brands regularly spend considerable money trying to achieve: an experience people wanted to record, share and discuss without being asked. The flyover moved quickly from the stadium into social media, news coverage and public conversation, with Airlink becoming inseparable from the spectacle. Whatever one thinks about the subsequent scrutiny around the execution of the flyover, its immediate communications impact was undeniable. Airlink had created a moment, and millions of people were doing the distribution.

For FlySafair, this was particularly interesting because it was not watching from outside the Springbok story. FlySafair has been associated with the Springboks for years and has invested significantly in building that relationship. Its response understandably reinforced that position, reminding audiences that it had been the Trusted Domestic Carrier of the Springboks for nine years, had performed flyovers of its own and had supported the team through two World Cup victories.

There was nothing wrong with saying any of that. The history is legitimate and valuable. But the role of experienced communications counsel is not simply to determine whether a response is correct. It is also to recognise when circumstances have created an opportunity to say something better.

And that is where this becomes a PR moment worth studying.

What If the Sponsor Had Celebrated the Flyover?

Imagine if, at the height of the conversation, FlySafair had responded with something closer to:

“Now that’s what we call representing Africa in fly style. South African aviation and the Springboks showing the world how it’s done. Well played, Airlink.”

FlySafair | Proud Sponsor of the Springboks

The strategic difference is significant. There is no need to explain nine years of history because the sponsorship credential quietly establishes FlySafair’s position. There is no attempt to compete with Airlink for ownership of the spectacle because Airlink deserves the credit for creating it. Instead, the longstanding Springbok sponsor congratulates another South African airline for creating an extraordinary moment around a team it proudly supports.

That response would not diminish FlySafair’s sponsorship. It could have demonstrated how secure the brand is in it.

It also creates the possibility of something much larger than a corporate post. Airlink could respond. Supporters could join the exchange. Other South African brands could participate. Journalists covering the viral flyover suddenly have another angle. What began as an Airlink aviation spectacle could develop into a wider conversation about South African aviation, the Springboks and two competing airlines demonstrating enough confidence to acknowledge each other publicly.

FlySafair would not have needed to manufacture any of that attention. Airlink had already created it.

This is one of the more interesting realities of public relations: sometimes your competitor creates your best communications opportunity for you.

A Competitor’s Attention Is Not Automatically Your Loss

Communications teams are trained to protect their clients, and rightly so. The difficulty comes when protection becomes an instinct to respond defensively whenever a competitor receives attention within territory associated with the client. Another company gets coverage and the immediate reaction is to remind audiences of our credentials. A competitor enters a conversation and we begin looking for ways to reassert ownership. Somebody else receives applause and we start explaining why our client deserves applause too.

That instinct can occasionally make a strong brand look less secure than it actually is.

The better strategic question is whether the competitor has created something from which the client can legitimately benefit. If the answer is yes, communications counsel should be capable of finding a way into that conversation without attempting to take it over.

FlySafair had an unusually strong basis for doing exactly that. Its relationship with the Springboks meant it did not need to force relevance into the conversation. The relevance was already there. A completely unrelated company attempting to capitalise on the flyover might have appeared opportunistic. FlySafair could have participated from the position of an established sponsor applauding a remarkable South African moment.

There is considerable reputational confidence in being able to congratulate a competitor without feeling that doing so reduces your own standing. In some circumstances, the stronger the brand’s position, the less frequently it needs to explain that position.

This Is Where a PR Retainer Can Earn Years of Its Value

Companies understandably measure public relations retainers against deliverables. There are media engagements, press releases, interviews, executive profiles, stakeholder programmes, content calendars, reputation reports and campaign plans. Agencies need to be accountable for all of them, but reducing the value of communications counsel to the number of visible items produced each month misunderstands an important part of what the client is actually paying for.

The client is also paying for judgement.

An agency may represent a company for years before something no one could have anticipated in the communications calendar creates a defining opportunity. By the time that happens, the communications team should understand the company well enough to know its history, personality, competitors, executives, sensitivities, stakeholders, sponsorship assets and appetite for risk. That accumulated understanding should allow the team to interpret an unexpected situation considerably faster than an outsider could.

More importantly, the relationship should have accumulated enough trust for the agency to make the recommendation that may initially sound uncomfortable.

Imagine the conversation inside FlySafair if somebody had suggested congratulating Airlink while the competitor was receiving enormous attention around a Springbok event. A marketing instinct might reasonably ask why the brand should give a competitor additional exposure. A sponsorship team might ask whether doing so weakens FlySafair’s association with the Springboks. An executive might simply ask why the company should mention Airlink at all.

The communications strategist has to be able to answer those questions quickly and convincingly: because Airlink is already getting the exposure; because the public already knows who created the spectacle; because pretending otherwise does not change the conversation; and because FlySafair has something more valuable than ownership of this particular flyover. It has an established relationship with the Springboks that gives it the confidence and legitimacy to applaud the moment.

That conversation, and the judgement behind it, is part of what years of retainer should buy.

Social Media Management and Communications Strategy Are Not the Same Job

The distinction is increasingly important because many companies have allowed the boundaries between marketing, social media and public relations to become blurred.

A social media team can identify that Airlink is trending and ask what FlySafair should post. A communications strategist should be asking a wider set of questions: what does Airlink’s sudden visibility mean for FlySafair’s sponsorship position? Is this actually a competitive threat or simply another company receiving attention? Does FlySafair have legitimate permission to participate? Would acknowledging Airlink strengthen or weaken the brand? Could the interaction generate earned media? What happens if public sentiment around the flyover changes? How do we participate in the positive moment without assuming responsibility for something we did not execute?

Those questions require considerably more than an ability to write clever copy. They require judgement about reputation, competition, timing, risk and public behaviour.

Sometimes the correct recommendation will be silence. Sometimes it will be an assertive defence of the client’s position. Sometimes it will be a carefully considered intervention. And occasionally, the smartest thing a company can do is congratulate the competitor everybody else is already congratulating.

Knowing which response the situation requires is the work.

The Flyover Also Shows Why Virality Is Not Reputation

The Airlink story carries another important communications lesson because the enormous attention generated by the flyover did not remain an uncomplicated marketing conversation. Questions around aviation safety and regulatory scrutiny subsequently became part of the public discussion.

That distinction matters.

Millions of views tell a company how much attention something has received. They do not tell the company what that attention is doing to its reputation. A viral video can generate admiration, concern, criticism and curiosity simultaneously. Serious reputation management therefore has to look beyond the reach number and understand how the meaning of a story is changing as different stakeholders enter the conversation.

This is another reason a FlySafair response would have required strategic discipline rather than simply clever social media copy. The brand could celebrate South African aviation, the Springboks and the spectacle while leaving ownership of the execution with Airlink. If the wider conversation subsequently changed, FlySafair remained exactly where it belonged: the proud sponsor celebrating the team rather than the airline defending the flyover.

The opportunity was therefore not simply to jump onto something viral. It was to recognise precisely which part of the moment FlySafair could credibly own.

The Best PR Decision May Be Twenty Words Long

The communications industry has become very good at demonstrating work. We produce strategies, decks, calendars, dashboards, reports, media analyses and campaign documents because clients rightly expect to see the thinking and activity behind their investment. But the volume of material produced should never be confused with the quality of communications judgement being provided.

An agency can produce hundreds of pages for a client and still miss the one twenty word response that could have placed the brand inside a national conversation.

Conversely, a communications professional can spend fifteen minutes writing a sentence whose strategic value rests on fifteen years of experience. The sentence is not valuable because it took fifteen minutes to write. It is valuable because the person writing it understood why those were the right words, why that was the right moment, what the client stood to gain and where the reputational boundaries were.

That is why the defining moments in long PR relationships deserve more attention. They reveal whether an agency has merely been servicing an account or has genuinely come to understand the client.

At Millionsworth Public Relations, this is particularly relevant to how we think about reputation and strategic communications across Africa. Companies operating across the continent increasingly face environments in which public conversations can change quickly, competitors can unexpectedly create opportunities, local events can become international stories and a seemingly simple response can carry consequences well beyond social media. Communications teams have to be capable of interpreting those moments in context rather than waiting for them to appear in an approved content plan.

A PR Moment Worth Studying

The lesson from the flyover is not that FlySafair failed, and it would be simplistic to suggest that there was only one correct response. FlySafair had every right to reinforce a sponsorship relationship in which it has invested for years, just as Airlink had every reason to maximise the attention generated by its own involvement around the rugby occasion.

The more valuable lesson sits between those positions.

When something no one could reasonably have anticipated in the communications calendar suddenly happens around a client, the communications team has a choice. It can respond to the most obvious interpretation of the event, or it can examine whether there is a smarter reputational opportunity hidden inside it. Sometimes that will mean protecting territory. Sometimes it will mean saying nothing. Sometimes it will mean moving faster than everyone else. And sometimes it will mean having enough confidence in the client’s position to applaud the competitor who just created the moment.

Airlink created the spectacle. FlySafair already had the sponsorship relationship. The public supplied the attention. For communications professionals, the interesting question is what could have happened if those three things had been connected by one perfectly judged response.

That is why this was more than a stadium flyover. It was the kind of PR moment every agency and in house communications team should study, because somewhere in every long client relationship there will eventually be an opportunity nobody placed in the communications calendar. The value of having experienced counsel in the room is recognising it while there is still time to make the right move.