Ok, so maybe you’ve seen the video below. Apparently close to 3 million views gives me that confidence. However, if you have not, take 4:37 to watch it:
Here’s the story in summary form. Dave Carroll says that last year United Airlines damaged his Taylor Brand guitar (notice the “Bumpy Flight” response they’ve recently added due to all the publicity – nice job Bob T and crew!). Apparently after a year of trying to get some assistance from United Airlines to address the situation, he took his angst to YouTube and created the above video. From there, one might say the phrase “viral video” really applied. Dave’s video was spread all over the world. And most recently, it made Wolf Blitzer want to talk about it over at CNN – yikes for United!! And while the video was being spread about, so was something else … United’s brand. And not in a nice way either. For some reason, I’m guessing United didn’t post this on their YouTube channel!!
Well, I guess, just like any good story, there’s a happy ending. See Dave’s statement video from just over the weekend below:
So a lesson learned about Brand Management. Maybe if United had been participating in our $49 per month Marketing Strength Training Program, they would have heard us cover “brand management”!! (Ok, that was a cheap plug – but something you still should check out!)
Here’s to brand management everyone – may your brand not be used in a parody song like this one!
– Donny