The story of United Breaks Guitars is a familiar story to anyone who has had problems with airline companies either loosing your luggage or getting luggage back less than perfect. Dave Carroll a singer and songwriter, expresses his experience with United Airlines breaking his Taylor guitar while flying with them last summer through a hit song and music video entitled “United Breaks Guitars”. The song took Youtube by storm and has had over 7 million hits since it’s release. In the song Carroll describes United Airlines throwing his guitar on the tarmac, which later resulted in breaking the guitar. He then goes on to describe his experience with dealing with the employees of the company showing “complete indifference” towards him, even though they were liable for fixing the guitar. After a year of following up on his claim, Carroll gets his final answer from a woman named Ms. Irlweg, which was a “NO”, United Airlines will not compensate for the damages to the guitar.
By no means are Taylor guitars inexpensive. Looking on their website some guitars can reach up to $7,000 dollars. Carroll didn’t mention how much his guitar was worth but on average, Taylor guitars are at least a couple thousand dollars each.
After Carroll came out with United Breaks Guitars he released a statement saying that since the song was released United contacted Carroll and offered compensation for the damages, but Carroll denied the offer and suggested the company donate the money to a charity of their choice, if the company would promise to let the public know about that donation. Because of negative comments about Ms. Irlweg from viewers, Carroll also went on to say that his dealings with Ms. Irlweg were positive and that she was only acting for the interest of the company she worked for. Carroll said he “hopes to have a laugh good laugh with her about all of this” in the future.
From a Public Relations standpoint there are many positives and negatives to this story. In my opinion the positives outweigh the negatives for Dave Carroll. I would consider myself a person who is interested in music and is aware of the most popular musicians, and before this video, I had never heard of Dave Carroll or his music. After watching the video I immediately went to his website to learn more about the type of performer he is and his accomplishments in the music industry, and later went on to listen to some samples of his songs on iTunes. I believe this song was a great asset to Dave Carroll. Because of the outrageous amount of hits he received on Youtube, I believe Carroll received a great deal of positive press and has become more successful because of the song. Singing about his experience, Carroll has appealed to the masses of everyday Americans. When you think of popular and famous musicians you don’t think of them having problems like average working class American’s do. I mean, have you ever heard of Jay Z having problems with airline companies?
On the other side of the spectrum, the song gave United Airlines a bad reputation. The way the airlines handled the situation, making Carroll jump through numerous hoops made the customer service department look bad. But the part of the story that jumps out the most is that the airlines finally came to their senses only after Carroll received so much attention for the song. By coming to Carroll looking to compensate for the damages after the song became so popular made the company ultimately look like they knew they had made a mistake and that they were only worried about their appearance rather than owning up to it and fixing it in the first place. Because of this negative publicity, why would you want to fly with an airline that was dishonest about compensating for damages, and would put you through numerous loop holes just to tell you that they will not be compensating for the damages they were liable for?
In a nutshell, well done Dave Carroll. Had you not had this bad experience with the airlines, you probably wouldn’t have ever gotten this much publicity for your musical talents. And United Airlines, work on your customer service because you never know when it’s going to come back and bite you!
