Meet the new Chief Marketing Officer of United Airlines – Dave Carroll. He sings and plays a guitar!
by Shashank Nigam | July 14th, 2009
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All Canadians rejoice! The new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of United Airlines is one of your own. He’s none other than Dave Carroll. His music video entitled “United Breaks Guitars” (watch below) is approaching three million views in just one week of being uploaded on Youtube. This is more than five times the total views of all of United Airlines’ advertisements since 1984 on Youtube!
Why do I call Dave the new CMO of the airline? Simply, because he has more power to communicate something about United’s brand experience than anyone in their corporate offices. And people relate to his experience much more than the airline’s advertisements featuring sea creatures.
The accidental spokesperson
The legend goes that (yes…it’s a legend already) on a flight from Halifax, Canada to Nebraska, Omaha, Dave’s Taylor guitar worth $3500 was badly damaged by baggage handlers in Chicago – an act Dave and his fellow passengers witnessed. After almost a year of chasing United Airlines for a compensation in vain, this is what Dave concluded:
At that moment it occurred to me that I had been fighting a losing battle all this time and that fighting over this at all was a waste of time. The system …
