It takes years to make someone fall in love with a brand – and seconds to make them hate it
United Airlines will be a case study down the ages of what happens when bad culture creates brand behaviour, argues Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes.
Until Sunday night, I had no strong feelings about United Airlines.
Why would I? Living in Australia, I’ve never flown with them.
And yet I’m now certain that there are no circumstance in which I’d consider flying with them, even if they offered the cheapest flights from Australia to the US. And I suspect that applies to customers from around the world too.
Their two brand attributes that will be on the top of my mind are that, firstly, United routinely overbooks, so getting to your destination will be a lottery. And, secondly, they treat their paying passengers with contempt. Like millions of people around the world, that will always be lodged in the back of my mind now.
Every airline overbooks and will continue to do so as its one of the ways to reduce the price of flights. Customers will start complaining if they stop overbooking and prices go up.
Seem to remember 5 years ago Qantas was never going to be the same after the grounded their entire fleet – https://mumbrella.com.au/qantas-faces-watershed-moment-in-history-62857
and shouts for Joyce to be sacked but it all blew over and now Joyce is the golden child, generating record profits and even loved by Tim. Will probably take a bit longer than Qantas but the United brand will recover and the upside for United is prior to the fiasco the brand was no Qantas or Singapore Airlines so it doesn’t have so far to go to get back to where ti was.
I guess this may be cultural. In which case Americans might well forgive and fly with them. Weird, but possible. The rest of us will never set foot on United.
Just think: in what business or country is it considered good practice to bump paying customers for staff? And on what planet is it usual to assault paying customers who resist being bumped?
Seriously. I once was amazed at the tolerance of two Thai women who had to shift a stone drunk fat Australian who had collapsed under his economy seat. I have regularly been amazed at the tolerance of qantas and other crew in dealing with obnoxious passengers. I simply cannot imagine an airline even contemplating the actions of United. And then the CEO gives them an official thumbs up!
The airline should die.
United’s slogan used to be “Fly the Friendly Skies of United” – until some knuckle-dragging morons flew one of their planes into the World Trade Center to please an invisible man in the sky.
“Culture creates actions, and action creates reputations.”
Mr Burrowes, that is most succinct and spot-on one liner I’ve seen in some time. Thank you!
Side note, I’ve flown with UA many times, they are a sloppy operator.
Ryanair the low-cost airline for Ireland, England & Europe manages to offer cheap flights without overbooking flights. Their Service is not perfect, but importantly they don’t beat-up/drag paying customers off flights.
They do but it’s an additional fee.
They appear to offer an equal opportunity level of appalling service across racial profiles and class of travel – this guy was dumped from 1st Class and threatened with handcuffs if he didn’t comply. It feels like this whole story has a long way further to play out – I’m sure there are dozens of similar experiences that will come out in the open now!
http://www.latimes.com/busines.....story.html
Great piece.
There is a really troubling underbelly to this story, and it’s the new American way.
United encouraged its employees to protest Emirates Newark/Athens route in early March on the basis that it would cost American jobs. The protest was clearly an anti-competitive action, a bad act, yet the American employees bought into the protest and hundreds joined the fight, employees, non-employees and bigots with time on their hands – incredible, Congressmen were also involved. Could that be any more broken?
“United Airlines announced Wednesday that its employees along with several members of Congress will stage a protest on Sunday at Newark Liberty International Airport [against the ME3]”
Agreed and it is broken.
General society in America is broken. Police and security are decked out in military attire these days. The US seems to be turning into a military state. More people incarcerated in private prisons, (which of course make a profit), it’s modern day slavery. The aggression displayed on United is normal, everyday aggression for many American’s. If you don’t comply, you will be punished. Something needs to change.
Tim,
I agree with much of what you have written here though on a couple of things I am not aligned… Your headline seems out of touch with young adults: “It takes years to make someone fall in love with a brand – and seconds to make them hate it”. I think this is a Gen X view of brand health and loyalty, from a pre-digital era heavily influenced by boomers and their parents and how things were done “back then”. For Gens Y and Z, brands can rocket into consciousness and acquire “lovemark” status in the comparative blink of an eye. If a new brand delivers a slick and differentiated digital experience, backed up with highest levels of customer service then their growth curve could make a church steeple blush.
Secondly, I tend to agree with fraser t above, who rightly points out the the general public have extremely short memories with brand indiscretions and this will all blow over. Whether it’s Nestle and powdered milk or Nike sweatshops, too many consumers just don’t give a shit as long as they get cheap deals. Malaysia Airlines lost 2 planes and killed hundreds of passengers just a few years ago. Sure they had to endure hurt for a few years but passengers are coming back and already they have turned things around. Who is to say United won’t do the same?
It takes a lot to kill a brand Tim. They take a long time to build but they don’t die easily either.
he was clearly a bit of a nut job to not get off the plane when the cops were telling him to. he wasn’t going to win that argument.
United should have kept bumping up the money on offer until somebody accepted to sell their seat
Agree with Andy
Telstra by rights should have been dead buried and cremated about 8 years ago for their sins
Nope…..people changed it and it lived
Today it’s almost acceptable
In the case of United it’s America’s international version of our “glorified bogan missile” – Tiger
So it never really had great brand characteristics
People will come back to it
Fly united
Die united
Actually I disagree with the Captain’s call to remove a passenger whilst the plane was loading but if that was the case I stand corrected. Having read Capt Sullys landing on the Hudson book he went to great lengths to explain how Captains have little control over who enter and exits a plane until the doors are closed and how ultimate power resides in the ground staff. They can do what they like and overrule the Captain. They can load a drunk passenger and unload an over booked passenger. But when the doors close, the Captain assumes responsibility and he can then open the doors and load another passenger, a standby passenger for example and against the wishes of the ground crew or unload a drunk passenger. Having also read Captain De Cresignys book I agree If I was on a plane in trouble I would prefer that he was my Pilot but equally the Qantas crew contained in his book had 100,000 hours between them and had flown airforce F1=11s and Hercules and 747s, 767s, A330s, as well as Richard’s Macchi Jets, Caribous, 747s, 767s, A330s and A380s. Richard said in his book that he was in awe or similar words of Capt Sully who glided his Airbus onto the Hudson.
As for United? I have flown 300 times mainly on Qantas. It will never be on United. Not Ever.
In the era of smartphones a single customer’s experience can suddenly become a viral sensation. Brands rely more on employee behaviour than ever before.
Well actually, you have raised a splendid point. How many companies who spend guzillions on marketing, could actually reign in that spend to bolster their customer experience. Case in point (more local): if you have ever purchased an appliance from Appliances Online, you will never buy one from Harvey Norman ever again. AO are simply amazing. The service, the communication, the prompt delivery; they nail it, each and every time. Compare the spends of the two and think about the bricks and mortar of HN.
Billionaires at the helm = staff and customers being ripped off, again and again.
This stuff will blow over. United had a 747 that had a cargo door blow off sucking out 9 business class passengers over Honolulu on its way to Sydney. So why were these passengers even on this airline last week?
Actually, it was a flight to Auckland. In that case it was Boeing that suffered the brand damage not United.
I’m feeling like my article; What do you do when your Brand is badly damaged? is required reading for Oscar.
http://www.melbournebranding.c.....y-damaged/
United need to own the “putting customers first” narrative and to own it through action. Plus lifetime first class flights for the doctor for free.
Damage control. Basic 101 in all marketing, management and business courses! What a list recently for massive fails when all could have been saved. As you said – in the blink of an eye. DreamWorld went into shutdown, when in a few minutes, could have actually increased its brand connection with emotional and immediate responses.
Careful now.
Big companies don’t necessarily survive: Pan-Am, Enron, Commodore Computers, Compass…
Arrogance towards customers is always rewarded.
United seem to have had a Phoenix-esque survival.
http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/UAL/tab/2