United Breaks Guitars

My hat goes off to David Carroll, a country music singer that recently has had an unfortunate experience with United Airlines. We all know how stressful it is to go through a claim process, regardless of the organization. Such was the case with Carroll. One of his band members witnessed their music equipment being treated poorly before they took off from Nova Scotia. Carroll tried to take to some employees form United but was pushed aside not once, or twice, but for nearly a year. In response Carroll and his band wrote songs and made music videos about the incident and posted it to YouTube for everyone to enjoy.

This is when the fun started to begin, within a matter of a few days millions of viewers had watched the video. The trend continued and as of today, the number of views is almost 6 million. If you do not get excited about this, you must be crazy! Social networking has come so far that in just a few short days, and sometimes hours, people from different parts of the world can communicate. The thing that amazes me the most is how the majority of the public is influenced by things posted on the internet such as this. Four days following the posting of the song United reported a 10% loss in their stocks, roughly costing them $180 million.

As I have read through comments on different sites about this incident, there is a common theme. It is something that an organization would never say to a reporter, and it is often viewed as a vulgar term; it is the word “sucks.” Many comments read that “America sucks,” some say “corporate America/Government sucks,” and some say that “country music sucks.” The reason I point this out is to bring to the table a concern that the global world, but mainly America, suffers from. I use the simple term, “pointing the finger.” In this example with Carroll and United, Carroll went to United and said they were doing things wrong. United beat around the bush, tried to cut corners, blamed other organizations, and ultimately said it was not their problem.

This is nothing new in our culture or day; the Presidents of the United States always have someone to point their finger at when something goes wrong. I am not saying that they are wrong in pointing a finger, I am saying it is instilled in us to point the finger and we often times use it when we shouldn’t. Think back to when you were with your little brother, sister, or cousin, and you were playing and something broke. Often times your first reaction is to blame the other person, second reaction would be to come up with a good story of how it was an accident. At times we tell the truth and that shows our maturity.

David Carroll was a genius with what he did. It got to the point that he did not care if he got a new guitar or money to replace it. He took his profession, the horrible incident, and some creative marketing strategies, to get some payback to United but also to get his name out as a singer. It could not have worked out any better for Carroll. In fact, United may want to use this as a good learning opportunity and hire some Public Relations workers that can come up with some creative ideas to prove they provide a good service to the community.

United must be spinning in circles, wondering what they are to do next. You would hope that they come out and provide a list of things they will fix, focus on, and improve. It would have been much easier had they done basic PR and handled the situation with Carroll before it escalated so drastically. If we can learn anything from this it should be that relationships between an organization and the consumers or just the general public are of high importance. Communication is vital, as you can see communication can get you in a lot of trouble in a short time.

Travis Hansen