David Meerman Scott, author of Real-Time Marketing & PR,
discusses in chapter 1 the importance of responding to real-time media by using
the story of Dave Carroll. In 2008, singer-songwriter Dave Carroll realized his
precious Taylor guitars were being thrown through the air by baggage handlers. After
realizing what was happening, Carroll and fellow band members of Son of Maxwell
began sharing their story to any employee who would listen: ground staff, flight
attendants, customer service, telephone reps and baggage service. After months of
endless frustration, United refused to compensate Carroll for his broken guitar.
Carroll decided to take his story public. Carroll and his
band posted a series of videos on YouTube titled “United Breaks Guitars”. Within
four days, the video reached 1 million views and continued to multiply.
No one was expecting Carroll’s songs to become so popular so
quickly. The amount of attention Carroll received was phenomenal. Carroll
participated in various television and phone interviews. It was only a matter of days before Carroll was
an internet sensation.
Although United refused to react to Carroll, Taylor Guitars
and Calton Cases jumped at the opportunity to increase its sales and brands. Taylor
Guitars posted videos to their YouTube account on how to properly pack guitars
while traveling and Calton Cases paired with Carroll to create Travel Cases at
a lower price. Capitalizing on an important real-time event and using it to their advantage was brilliant.
Being able to react in real-time at any given point gives companies an edge
over competitors.
From a future public relations professional, I can’t believe that such a big,
well-known company like United didn’t respond to Carroll, Taylor Guitars or
Calton Cases. Not making a comment on such a well-known, real-time event makes
it seem that United is hiding something or trying to cover up their mistake by
avoiding the problem all together. It is essential for any company to face the facts and own up to their mistakes to avoid losing customers and business in the future.
Even today, United Airlines has a negative connotation while traveling with delicate items. If United would have compensated Carroll for his
guitar and demonstrated good customer service, the whole situation could have been
avoided. Companies and professionals of all industries can learn from the story of Dave
Carroll; mange real-time events to avoid crises.
Allie-
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you talked about both United Airlines and all the companies that benefited from United Airlines silence. I agree that United should have said something, especially because it did look like they were hiding something from the public. Dave Carroll took his devastating accident, with his Taylor guitar and turned himself and two other major companies into big successes. As you stated, this is a great example of real-time marketing and public relations. Both Taylor Guitars and Calton Cases reacted in a very quick manner to ride along with the success of Dave Carroll. Even though United did eventually offer Dave compensation, they did it in a private manner and he politely refused, as he had been trying to receive this compensation for nine months after the incident had happened. In total Dave Carroll, Taylor Guitars and Calton Cases made the best out of this incident, while United sat back and kept putting themselves into a deeper hole.
This song won't get out of my head. But what really matters is that he got his message across and he had a popular medium to do it. He used his career to make a huge corporation be exposed to the world for its flaws. The way that he goes about it is humorous and probably got under the skin of the employees at United. The marketing was amazing for the Taylor guitars as well because it is a catchy song that promotes music instruments. I also think that taking in all this information as a public relations and Communication Studies major is only going to make you a better student and future professional! You're well on your way Allie!
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