Virgin Trains take on Jeremy Corbyn with #TrainGate

August 24 2016

By @G_Parsons33

Published in Crisis

The #TrainGate hashtag took over Twitter on Tuesday, after Virgin Trains released CCTV footage that suggested Jeremy Corbyn actually had a seat on the train he had previously declared was so full that he had been forced to sit on the floor.

In an unusual PR move, the brand hit back at the Labour leader after he attacked the shortcomings of the UK’s privatized rail service earlier this month.

So was it a good move for the brand or not? Visibrain looked into the #TrainGate crisis to try and determine what the general public and the media had to say about the scandal, and Virgin’s attempt to defend its reputation.

The first moments of #TrainGate

The dispute between Jeremy Corbyn and Virgin Trains started last week, when the Labour leader called for the nationalisation of the rail system in a video showing him sitting on the floor of a train carriage. The video was shared thousands of times on social media and in the press.

Virgin Trains struck back this week, releasing CCTV footage of Corbyn walking through one of the train’s carriages, in which all of the seats appear to be empty.

The crisis broke on Twitter at 1.21 pm on Tuesday, when The Telegraph published an article about the alleged deception:

The Telegraph publishes its article about TrainGate

From the moment the piece was published, tweet volumes rose rapidly:

The first moments of the TrainGate crisis

At 2.02 pm, Virgin CEO Richard Branson tweeted an official statement from Virgin Trains, boosting conversations even further:

Conversations continued to escalate throughout the rest of the day, quickly reaching over 15,000 tweets per hour.

A social media firestorm for Jeremy Corbyn

In terms of volumes, #TrainGate certainly generated a lot of bad press for Corbyn: in total, 114,681 tweets about the scandal were posted by over 45,717 Twitter accounts on Tuesday.

An overview of tweet volumes for the Traingate scandal

The #traingate hashtag was used 85,874 times.

To make matters worse, Virgin Trains’ offical statement and the damning article from The Telegraph were the most popular links of the day, shared thousands of times apiece.

The top articles shared about traingate

The scandal was also covered by many high-profile media outlets such as the BBC, Buzzfeed, and the Independent.

Although Jeremy Corbyn gave a number of statements about the incident during interviews, he did not comment on Twitter.

Twitter springs to Corbyn’s defence

Things may have looked bad for Mr Corbyn, but not everyone was ready to accept #TrainGate at face value.

Passengers who had been present on Corbyn’s train quickly started to confirm his side of the story:

A piece from the Independent about passengers disputing Virgin’s claims was the 4th most shared of the day, tweeted 870 times:

The Idependent publishes an article about traingate passengers opposing Virgin's story

Corbyn’s supporters were also making themselves heard. The second most-retweeted user of the scandal was @CharlesBAnthony, who defended Jeremy Corbyn’s side of the story intensively:

He even posted a Live Periscope of his train journey home that day, to prove that Corbyn was telling the truth about overcrowding:

With doubt having been cast on Virgin’s story, the brand left themselves open to a flood of criticism.

Virgin Trains comes under fire

Virgin Trains didn’t escape the scandal unscathed - the brand attracted a lot of negative attention by attempting to discredit Jeremy Corbyn.

The Labour leader may be a divisive political figure, but Virgin’s attack encouraged a lot of unsatisfied customers get involved in the scandal - not to comment on Corbyn’s supposed spin, but to criticize the service provided by the brand and question their motives.

There were over 18,000 #TrainGate tweets referring directly to Virgin Trains, and the most shared posts are all distinctly negative:

The #TrainGate tweets referring directly to Virgin trains were far from complimentary

It seemed like a lot of Twitter users had things to say about the service provided by Virgin Trains:

There may yet be more trouble ahead for Virgin, as many have disputed the legality of using CCTV footage without consent:

The #TrainGate scandal is a good example of the dangers of openly criticizing a public figure. While many would agree that Virgin Trains were right to defend themselves, in doing so, they left themselves open to criticism, drawing unwanted attention to the shortcomings of their service.

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Published in Crisis