It’s a simple tale, broken down: Man’s guitar gets broken by airline baggage personnel; man gets runaround from airline’s customer service department; man strikes back by making music video about the experience; man goes viral. Since the release of United Breaks Guitars, Dave Carroll’s Twitter feed has become a recitation of endless public appearances, including on CNN, Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Today Show. He’s gotten a tour of the Taylor guitar factory, received offers to speak about social media by various organizations, and even — yes — been offered financial compensation by United for his trouble (an offer he rejected).
But Carroll planned to make three videos, and he said via phone this morning that it’s a promise he plans to keep. United Breaks Guitars: Song 2, premiering last night, is bigger in scope than Song 1, featuring nearly 100 extras and a crew of 15 people, with everything — including a 40-foot-high scissor lift for some overhead shots — donated to the production.
But it’s as clever and catchy as the original, with good will palpable in every chord, right down to his choice of guest star: Worried that people had been too hard on Ms. Irlwig, a United Airlines employee Carroll mentioned by name as being the last to reject his claim, Carroll brought back Christine Buiteman (who played Ms. Irlwig in the first video) to show there were no hard feelings. Why her unusual choice in instrument? “I wanted this one to be light and funny,” he said, “and to me, that’s a tuba.”
Carroll attributes the success of Song 1 to a number of factors, most importantly, the video’s topical nature, professional production values, and lighthearted approach. “Humor draws people in much more — people couldn’t wait to tell their friends,” he said. And for those who follow how blogs drive video views, he credits The Consumerist with being the first blog to pick up the video — in its first day of release, a link from there jumped from a few hundred hits to 20,000.
When he initially told the unhelpful agent that he was going to make three videos about his experience with the airline, his reasoning was twofold: “Good jokes happen in threes,” Carroll said via phone, “and I thought that if I made three I stood a chance of reaching a million views.” As United Breaks Guitars has reached 5 million views since its release and caused more than its fair share of embarrassment for United, you’d think Carroll would be content.
But you know how in a bad action movie, when the hero takes off his sunglasses, looks at the flaming wreck of his RV or chopper or whatever, and says, “This time, it’s personal”? Well, Carroll has taken the opposite approach. Having received “thousands of emails” from people thanking him for speaking out about bad customer service, he’s hoping to force United Airlines into curing the disease, not treating the symptoms. Song 3, he says, is currently unwritten, and United has a chance to influence it.
“It’s still a blank slate, but they have a voice in its fate, depending on what kind of commitments they’re willing to make to improve customer service,” he said. “My goal wasn’t to drive United Airlines into the ground, but to make customer service a bigger priority. Customers make the bottom line a good one or a bad one.” It’s statements like these that make Carroll a protest singer for the Web 2.0 world — and the nicest you’ll ever meet.
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