The sporting rivalry between Australia and New Zealand is fierce at the best of times.Rugby Union supporters are especially one-eyed during the annual Bledisloe Cup Rugby Union clashes, and once every four years for the Rugby World Cup.
As a business with commercial interests on both sides of the Tasman, the last thing you'd want is to take sides.
But that's precisely what Qantas — the major sponsor of the Wallabies — did during Australia's 2011 Rugby World Cup campaign. And its something the airline is making sure it will never do again.
"Qantas are the major sponsor of the Australian team so of course we wanted to put out a lot of messaging around how good the Wallabies were [and] how we were going to win the World Cup," Qantas Airways' manager of digital innovation, Michael Curry, told Salesforce's Dreamforce conference last week.
"We got a call from our New Zealand team who were quite — let's call them upset — about it."
Qantas centrally manages its social media presence — mostly for Facebook and Twitter channels — out of its Sydney headquarters.
Staff presently work 9am to 5pm AEST, though the airline is trialling extended hours and envisages a future "24x7 operation".
Curry is cognisant that the model comes with "dangers of being too Sydney-centric".
