We recently spoke to a Web One client who had their laptop broken in transit when flying on a Virgin Airlines flight. Virgin had quickly agreed to replace the laptop and made the whole process relatively simple for him.
We immediately began to reminisce about the United Airlines saga and how the viral hit on YouTube, “United Breaks Guitars” became an instant hit and did damage to both the airline’s image and their bottom-line (it has been estimated to have cost United $180 million with the stock price plunging 10%).
For those who don’t know the story goes; “Dave Carrol (an aspiring US singer/song-writer) flew United Airlines in the Spring of 2008 with his band. His guitar ended up broken at the hand of employees, and the airline offered no compensation. After almost 12 months of trying to resolve the issue with United and getting no-where, he responded by creating a music video about the experience. Now, United Airlines is feeling the back-lash of public journalism, the social web network, and the millions of airline travellers who can identify with his experience.”
You can read the full story on Dave Carroll’s blog, but this excerpt captures the story behind the video:
“In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.”
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Since the release of the video on YouTube in July 2009 there has been more than 6.4 million views and over 23,000 comments.
United is obviously aware of the video, and reportedly called Carroll to apologise, but the bigger story is the video itself and how likely United is to continue to suffer from the social media backlash.
The power of social media means the rules of accountability for businesses now takes on a whole new aspect of moral responsibility.
Tags: social media, viral marketing, youtube
