Research suggests that reputation comes from relationships and trust. Fombrun (1996) states that to have a positive reputation, managers must invest in building and maintaining good relationships. Building relationships with the company's audience can result in a better opinion of their reputation. These relationships also build trust in the company. “Trust, like reputation, can take years and resources to build, and while it can be difficult to break, again, like reputation, it can take a long time and even more resources to restore” (Bronn, 2010 , page 310). With both relationships and trust, a company must communicate with its audience. Van Riel and Fombrun (2007) developed six key principles of communication that produce high reputation: visibility, distinctiveness, authenticity, transparency, consistency, and responsiveness (p. 313). By applying these six principles to the Carnival case, we can determine whether Carnival used them in managing its reputation. Visibility concerns the public and market importance of the organization or how much people know about the organization (p. 313). During this crisis, Carnival used social media to keep people updated on what was happening at sea. Before this case, Carnival was a common name in the cruise industry. According to Carnival's website (www.carnival.com) Carnival is part of the alliance of the world's leading cruise lines. Coombs (2010) stated that “a strong reputation before a crisis is an asset for organizations during the crisis” (p. 478). Having this positive reputation upfront should help Carnival ultimately with customers. Distinctiveness is the characteristics that distinguish one organization from others. These features can be the logo, slogan and trademarks (page 314). Carnival has all three, a distinct logo, the slogan “Fun for All. All for fun. and trademarks on ship names, “Splendor,” “Freedom,” and “Liberty” to name a few of the 23 different ships (www.carnival.com). Authenticity helps make an organization real, genuine, accurate, reliable, and trustworthy (p. 314). By using social media and addressing the crisis head-on, the company appears trustworthy to people. Carnival took responsibility for the incident and attempted to resolve it as quickly as possible. Carnival's CEO also issued a public apology to those on the ship and to Carnival customers. Additionally, transparency is the amount of information and access stakeholders have access to about an organization (p. 314). Carnival Cruise director John Heald has used his blog to offer updates and general reports to consumers and the press.