United Breaks Guitars

When I first listened to Dave Carroll’s songs on youtube, I was amused (Video one- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo and video two Video 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-UoERHaSQg&feature=channel). Come on, a guy writing and singing a song about a broken guitar? Then I thought about it for a little bit. I get irritated when my flight gets delayed, or when people in customer service are rude. Dave Carroll got the run around for about nine months (http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/story/united-breaks-guitars-how-it-got-made-1). I would be pretty angry too.
Dave Carroll, Canadian musician was flying United and had a layover in Chicago when witnesses saw United employees recklessly throwing guitars. Upon landing, he discovered his $3,500 Taylor guitar was damaged. A never ending circle of ‘I’m not to blame’ attitude followed, with very little answers or information coming from the United side.
Carroll made more phone calls then anyone should have to in an attempt to get in contact with anyone who would listen to him and help him receive compensation for the damage incurred on his Taylor guitar. He sent faxes with information, and spoke with the people in India from the 1 800 number more than once. Meanwhile, Carroll spent $1,200 getting the guitar repaired; however, he said, “it plays well but has lost much of what made it special.”
Eventually he got into contact with a Ms. Irweg via e-mail, and after multiple correspondences, told him that United would not be taking any responsibility what so ever, and that would be the end of it. Carroll’s final offer of $1,200 dollars worth of flight vouchers to cover the cost of his repairs was denied, and so he promised to write, sing and produce music videos for three songs about his horrible experience with United and put them on youtube for everyone to see.
Carroll’s goal was one million viewers in a year. To date, he has 5,391,807 views on the first video which was released only two short months ago. His second video debuted two weeks ago, and already has 312,858 views.
In a case like this, it is very hard to accurately estimate how much damage has been done to United. United’s stock plunged down 10 percent, or 180 million dollars. Now can it be said that this is directly from Carroll’s video? Unlikely, the trend of airlines declining stock has been so for a while; however, there is no denying his video had somewhat of an impact on this.
After United realized how much negative attention they were receiving in this matter, they attempted to contact Carroll and ‘make things right’. Carroll wanted nothing to do with them in this matter, and thanked them for smashing his guitar saying, “If my guitar had to be smashed due to extreme negligence I’m glad it was you that did it. Now sit back and enjoy the show.”
The amount of publicity Carroll has gotten from all of this, you can’t put a price on. It has given him more media attention then he could have done on his own. Whether he will continue on in his musical career or simply be known for his United Breaks Guitars songs is yet to be seen; however, we will enjoy the show as it unfolds.