"United Breaks Guitars"

Dave Carroll is a musician whose guitar was broken by baggage handlers from United Airlines while he was traveling to Nebraska for a week tour. United Airlines didn’t deny it was their fault for the broken guitar and for months Carroll tried to get them to compensate for the damages. After being told no time and time again Carroll promised the last person he talked to that he would write and produce three songs about his experiences with United Airlines for anyone to see. Since nothing was done to correct the issue Carroll wrote a song and within days the video flew across the web. Millions of people have seen the first video and the second recently has been released. Carroll still has one song left to produce.
It appears that since Carroll’s song and music video have been brought to the attention of millions of people, United Airlines stock plummeted and they lost around $180 million. The “United Breaks Guitars” music video could have definitely had a tremendous impact on people’s reactions and responses to United Airlines but there are also other factors that could play into the loss of so much stock. United Airline’s stock had been in a downturn for a while now just like other airline stock regardless of what was happening with Carroll’s situation.
After Carroll’s first video received a lot of publicity and United Airlines received much criticism for the way they handled the situation, United Airlines decided they need to react in a more positive manner. They called Carroll and told him they would like to give him $3000 to compensate for the guitar. At this point Carroll wasn’t looking for compensation so he declined and asked that they give the money to charity and let everyone know where that money went.
I think one of the most amazing things about this situation is how something that seemed so small to an organization can explode into something they should be very concerned with because of social media. With the ability to communicate so efficiently across the globe, companies should be more concerned with customer service and making sure they present themselves in more of a positive manner. I don’t think Carroll will be the only person who is able to make a difference and have such an influence through social media.
I really respected the way Carroll told his story. It was very unique and I feel like he was sincere about the message he was trying to get across. Someone having gone through a nine month ordeal just trying to get justice could have exaggerated more on how bad the customer service was for United Airlines. For instance, he could have made the customer service representatives seem like they were more malicious or ditzy. He seemed to say what he wanted to without being a jerk.
When Carroll made the announcement that United Airlines has contacted him he also was sure to tell the fans to be nicer to Ms. Irlwig from the video. He wanted them to cut her some slack because she was just trying to do her job to the best of her ability. In the second video he also made it seem like there were no hard feelings and that hopefully eventually they would be able to share a laugh about the whole situation.
I’m curious to see after the next video what United Airline’s response will be. They could ignore it and hope that things will settle eventually, they could change some of their policies or they could make a public apology to Carroll for the entire situation. With the reactions that Carroll has received from his video I find it a bit strange that the only thing they have done is offer him the money for his guitar late. Something as large as this should not be settled on that small of a scale. Changes need to be made.
One more thing I found interesting about this ordeal is that Carroll and his group “Sons of Maxwell,” have received so much publicity that this will change their lives. It has boosted their careers worldwide. Using and singing about Taylor guitars has also provided a lot of advertising for Taylor guitars. This is a completely different way of advertising than I have thought about before. I wonder what influence it will have on marketing and if in the future social media will even more so be a large marketing tool .

Some sites that I looked on and found interesting were:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/08/united-breaks-guitars-pas_n_228062.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/24/united-breaks-guitars-did_n_244357.html
http://www.sixthmanmarketing.com/united-airlines-responds-to-dave-carroll
http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/