The Power of Social Multimedia – United Breaks Guitars

At about 7:30 this morning, (which is pretty early for me) I came across a link to Dave Carroll‘s youtube video about United Airlines, and how baggage handlers broke his guitar by throwing it onto the tarmac as he watched. For a year United refused to compensate him for the damage.

When he had finally had enough and had been told "No" for the last time, instead of getting mad, Dave Carroll got creative.  He wrote a song, filmed a video with his band "Sons of Maxwell", and posted it online for the world to see.

Here it is:

Well wouldn’t you know it, it went viral.  More than 500,000 views is 3 days, and featured on tons of blogs, and CNN, and even Fox news.  Surprise, surprise, after about 50,000 views Dave gets a call from United who wants to "make it right".  Apparently when the enitre world can see how you treat people, suddenly it matters.

I could go on about how United’s response is reactive not proactive, to little to late, or mention that integrity is defined by what you do when no one is watching, not what you do when the whole world is watching.  I could also talk about how Dave taking his complaint viral really got results.  Should United Airlines have stepped up to the plate before Dave wrote his song, of course they should have, and they are now probably wishing they had. But that’s not why I’m posting.

The real success here is how Social Multimedia can be an agent of change.  This is only a consumer example, who didn’t see photos from the protests in Iran shortly after the election there.

There are a few key factors here, that helped Dave’s video to go viral and get results.  His message was simple, "United Breaks Guitars".  He told a story that almost anyone who has to fly regularly can relate to, we can put ourselves in his shoes.  He was telling a story we all know, little guy vs corporate giant, David vs Goliath.  Not to mention a catchy tune.

Here’s the thing, his video will work.  Most likely it will work in ways he never expected.  Sure thousands if not eventually millions of people will hear his story and say "shame on United".  He will likely get compensation from United for his Guitar, what he wanted in the first place.  He has been inundated with inquiries about his music. But, the most important and most powerful result will likely be United’s long term response.  The company said this:

"Dave Carroll’s excellent video provides United with a unique learning opportunity that we would like to use for training purposes to ensure all customers receive better service from us."

United either has some excellent PR people that should perhaps be transferred to the Customer Service Department to do some training, or they are actually going to do something about the way they deal with customers.  Image how many complaints a day a company like United Airlines gets. They have opportunities daily to implement positive change in their customer service, but it takes a viral county music video complaint shown to the world, and a PR catastrophe for them to really take a look at themselves and think about change.  THAT’S the real power of Social Multimedia.  Let’s hope they follow through!

ps. I learned about "United Breaks Guitars" from a Twitter post by David Meerman Scott.  I recently read Scott’s book "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" a fantastic insight into the growing importance of new media in marketing, and PR through interactive customer feedback.