I’ve long been a proponent of social media over traditional Internet marketing methods like SEO, AdWords and the rest of the usual suspects. That’s because, I believe, what others say about you can be far more powerful than what you say about yourself.
In fact, Eric Clemons, a professor at the famed Wharton Business School, touched off a small firestorm this spring when he posted an article titled Why Adverising Is Failing On The Internet…where he detailed all the “reasons why” behind this very thing.
Still, when you explain this principle to most marketer’s, they just nod their head then say “what’s the fastest way I can get top rankings in Google?”.
As with most things, the power of something isn’t truly appreciated until it’s used as a negative.
A case in point is musician Dave Carroll from Canada. He flew on United Airlines. Baggage handlers broke his expensive Taylor guitar. And after about 9 months of getting the runaround, United Airlines officially refused to pay for it.
So to exact his revenge, Dave made a video detailing his ordeal with United Airlines. A music video called United Breaks Guitars. He posted it on YouTube on July 6, 2009. By July 9th, it had received over 500,000 views.
It has also attracted the attention of major newspapers and TV shows, like the Chicago Tribune and Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room on CNN. All told, that millions worth of free advertising…all negative…for United Airlines.
Oh yea, it got the attention of United Airlines too. They are now working to resolve the situation with Dave Carroll and his guitar. They’ve Twittered about (http://twitter.com/UnitedAirlines). And they even claim to be using his video as part of their employee training now.
In other words, one guy putting together a nicely produced video has said more about United Airlines…in a negative sense…than they could do with millions in advertising spent putting themselves in a positive sense.
Too bad for United Airlines that Dave has two more videos in production that detail his less-than-stellar experiences with them. You can see Dave’s first video, the one that has created all the buzz, below:
All I can say is WOW!
Some video and a little creativity and you can make the big times 🙂
I would buy his CD.
The moment we received word about this video and the impact it had on United Airlines, for some reason the words rang through my head that the “little guy” finally has hope.
What I mean by this is that as a travel professional, we listen to many of our travel clients tell us horror stories about travel suppliers and airlines treating them with little to no respect.
Many of these airline companies have been extremely arrogant, and now with the power of video and social networks, frustrated consumers can have a powerful voice and this is the proof right here.
I encourage all to use this medium to express your ligitimate concerns, and teach these companies and CEO’s that our voice will be heard.
Great post!
As other have already indicated, I, too ABSOLUTELY love this post. So much so in fact that I shared it on FB AND gave it a DIGG. There is SUCH power in numbers and NOW, thank to Social Media, WE have the megaphone and we’re coming through LOUD and CLEAR! Wonderful.
Peace and Love,
DeeJay
We used to live in a world where it was “caveat Emptor” (Buyer Beware). Now, the easy to use mass communication tools known as “social media” are shifting the balance of power between buyers and sellers.
Welcome to the new age of caveat venditor. (Seller Beware)
Great post Dave!!
Humorous ‘David & Goliath’ story meets Kenny Rogers.
Always going to be a winner 😉