If you’re a big fan of PR debacles, then you’ve probably already heard about the United Breaks Guitars music video on Youtube.
If you haven’t, here’s a summary: Guy watches guitar get broken by baggage handlers. Guy gets nowhere with customer service. Guy makes suspiciously-high-production-value music video on Youtube complaining about his treatment.
And the crowd goes wild. It’s at nearly 400,000 views already.
I have to wonder if Dave Carroll, the man behind the video, was just that pissed, or if he’s some kind of marketing genius. Or maybe a little of both.
United has since responded in an attempt to suppress the raging wildfire. I don’t know exactly what they did and I don’t care. It’s too late now.
I used to think I was alone in this harsh insensitivity towards corporate responses like this. After all, they’re doing something, right? A quick glance at the Youtube comments, or at many of the blog posts on this ordeal, shows me I’m actually among the least angry now.
Too little, too late. Is this the new face of social media? Should big companies start investing more in prevention, and less in cure?
Then again, for the viral video, perhaps it’s appropriate that there is no cure.
Related posts:
- Presence: the best place to start with your public relations
- Driving the Online Newsroom
- Conversation vomit: Why aggregating everything everyone says is a stupid idea
- Having a code of ethics, in and of itself, is meaningless
- On FTC’s blogging guidelines, ‘clearly and conspicuously’ is what everyone should be talking about
