ADM 1370 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: United Breaks Guitars, Perez Hilton, Jimmy Fallon
3 May 2018
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Class 5
Social Media Crisis Management: Introduction
• Social Media Crisis
o A crises issue that arises in or is amplified by social media, and results in negative
mainstream media coverage in business process, or financial loss
• Characteristics
o Technology helps create a negative buzz around a brand, product or service
o Ground-up phenomenon that is largely out of the control of the business being
affected
o Powered through emergent events
▪ small low-level events, such as the interactions between a few consumers,
can give rise to higher-level intensity, such as the development of new
disparaging multimedia content and negative campaigns
Case Vignette: United Breaks Guitars
• United Break Guitars
• What happened? Summary
• Questions for discussion
o How could UAL have handled this crises better? What types of strategies and
tactics are recommended for other companies?
o Why did Dave Carroll’s song video go viral? What does it take for something to
become successful viral content?
Additional Facts about the Case
• Extensive & deliberate use f social media
o Carroll’s friend, Ryan Moore, posted the video to Youtube at about 10pm on Monday, July 6,
2009
▪ A small team of friends used Twitter to introduce their followers to the video
▪ They also tweeted to those on Twitter who had themselves tweeted about
bad experiences with United Airlines, and to members of the media including
Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, and Perez Hilton
▪ They posted the story to Digg and other social news sites to which people
could submit stories and vote them up or down
• What else worked in Dave’s favour
o Dave Carroll’s video was immediately picked up by Consumerist.com, a
website affiliated with Consumers Union, America's leading not-for-profit
consumer advocacy organization and the publisher of Consumer Reports
magazine
• What the vent did for Dave
o Became famous…increased sales…etc
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Additional facts about the case: extensive & deliberate use f social media, carroll"s friend, ryan moore, posted the video to youtube at about 10pm on monday, july 6, Mariner partners and rightnow technologies (customer experience software providers) Stop being a bully and fess up! : you can say creatively that this has struck a chord with you but lets be real how do you plan on changing . And since i"m on a roll, shame on you for taking over a year to bother to much truth in your bar? . I posted a video for a client of mine monday night and it"s like the biggest vid on youtube canada now : united airlines replied. That is why policy asks for claims w/in. No excuse; we"re sorry. : another tweet from afternoon on july 8th: I love this song about @unitedairlines check it out! : united airlines replied.
