Does United Break Guitars?

O.K. Not the title you expected to see on an Association blog. However, if you haven't yet seen it, I'm sure this story will start to bubble up in the "mainstream" media over the course of the next few days.

A little background is in order. A singer/songwriter was traveling on United Airlines, and in the process of doing so a guitar he had checked as luggage was damaged. After talking with United Airlines for more than 9 months, they told him that they were not responsible for the damage. He decided that his best recourse was to write a song and post it on YouTube. And, this was the result:



It hit the Twitterverse hard, and within three days, it had more than half a million views on YouTube. Within 48 hours of it's release, United Airlines contacted the singer to "set things right".

The small story is that a guy had a damaged guitar and was able to get some satisfaction (and a huge career boost) by writing a song about it and having social media do the rest.

The big story is how United Airlines has allowed their brand to be so tarnished that people are willing to watch this video and think to themselves "yep...that's exactly what that airline does to people."

The airline industry in general has always taken a hit for being difficult to deal with, but United somehow always shows up around the bottom. Don't take my word for it...check it out here and here and here.

United, by not fixing it's systems and processes for handling the complaints, opened itself up for the shellacking it took at the hands of an unknown singer/songwriter. How are you managing your association / company brand?

Are you monitoring what other people are saying about you in the social sphere? Are you doing your best to address things, both positive and negative, in order to create the trust necessary to develop loyal followers?

In The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier says "It takes a village to build a brand - customers, vendors, employees, partners, stockholders. When enough people have the same gut feeling, you have a brand."

What is the gut feeling your members and clients have?