Remember Dave Carroll? He’s back with a book, United Break Guitars, with lessons for airlines in crises management

Remember Dave Carroll? Whom we once proclaimed as United Airlines’ Chief Marketing Officer, since more people listened to his “United Breaks Guitars” song than the marketing messages from the airline?

His United Breaks Guitars trilogy of music videos now has over 15 million YouTube views. He’s been doing media interviews and speeches around the world. And he’s become the subject of a Harvard Business School case study.In fact, United Airlines now uses his videos to train staff and pays him a license fee to do so, at his request (an advice we shared in our own music video, called “The Answer”).

While claims that United Airline’s stock price dipped 10% after the video came out may not necessarily be accurate, it certainly dented United Airline’s already-shaky brand image. And of course Dave provided us a very good case study that we use during our MasterClasses.

Now, he’s come out with a book  – United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media, which has just been published. The book goes in-depth about how an accidental spokesperson for an airline brand can mean trouble – in the long term – and how to handle such crises.

Of course, we’ve compiled a number of case studies, and even an infographic on how airlines can best deal with crises, in today’s world with the connected traveler. Though, if you’re in the aviation business, you’ll find the first hand account of Dave Carroll insightful, and get you thinking how you can prevent the same from happening to your airline too!

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