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.
I first watched the now infamous video when it hit the top of Reddit on Sunday night.
Framed as security thugs throwing a doctor off a plane – because he wouldn’t give up the seat he’d paid for to airline staff as he had patients to treat at the other end – it made me viscerally angry. And thousands of other Reddit commentators too.
By the next morning, Australian time, it was everywhere, and United had blown it in the one tiny window they had.
It was all I saw in my Facebook feed, the most viral thing I’ve seen since, well, Jacketgate.
Much like Pepsi’s disaster with Kendall Jenner last week, my jaw dropped on how so many communications professionals got it wrong.
In the initial stages, when the first damaging video appeared on Twitter, the immediate response from the airline was to effectively blame the passenger.
In a two-part tweet, “MD”, the person on United’s Twitter account responded to the video with the message “Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave… the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate.”
Even without accepting blame, regret at the passenger’s injuries could easily have been expressed. Not to mention regret at overbooking the flight.
And this wasn’t an off-the-cuff response. The team responsible for the account had had time to find out what happened, view the video, and still not understand how it would look to the public.
A few hours later, Oscar Munoz, the airline’s CEO had issued his own first, tone-deaf statement.
Ironically just a month ago, Munoz had been named communicator of the year by PR Week.
Within a fortnight of that award, United was making global headlines after reportedly refusing to allow teenagers to board because they were wearing leggings.
I note that overnight the editor of PR Week Steve Barrett has conceded:
“The incident has shed much light on our choice of the United CEO as Communicator of the Year at the PRWeek Awards last month. It’s fair to say that if PRWeek was choosing its Communicator of the Year now, we would not be awarding it to Oscar Munoz.”
In the above tweet from Munoz, there was still no acknowledgement of the airline’s contribution to the incident – but it did showcase the airline’s differing world view to that of its potential customers.
It was now clear clear that United sees overbooking as a fact of life that isn’t to be apologised for. And in airline economics, it is a fact of life, particularly in the US.
It’s not uncommon for ticket-holding passengers to be denied boarding because the most financially effective model is to overbook and hope that somebody doesn’t turn up.
The airlines know this, but as United demonstrated in its response, it doesn’t understand that just because the conditions of carriage allow it, it doesn’t mean the public are okay with it. They foolishly think that if they buy a ticket they should be able to make the trip.
And as the hours ticked by, United failed to get in front of the story while the headlines – and memes – got worse.
Jimmy Kimmel’s “Honest United commercial”, has already had more than one million views on YouTube and been replayed endlessly on other TV shows.
Twitter had its own fun. Of course.
What were the actual facts? Was it true that this man was a doctor? Was it true he told fellow passengers he had to treat patients in the morning? And if he did, was that actually true, or was he fibbing to try to keep his seat?
Whatever the truth, the doctor-being-bumped narrative went virtually unchallenged.
If it was true, the airline’s PR professionals should have been screaming for it to unconditionally apologise for what happened.
If it wasn’t, they needed to get that out there. Behind the scenes, they dithered. And then they doubled down, emailing staff, in a memo which obviously leaked. It was the passenger’s fault. Instead Munoz told staff “I want to commend you for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right.” Whatever that means.
Meanwhile, another element of the story the airline had complete control over also didn’t get out there properly either.
It was being widely reported that the passengers were being bumped because four off-duty staff wanted the seats.
It smacked of arrogant staff favouring their mates over the customers.
The airline failed to vigorously correct the record that they were staff who were needed as crew on another flight, and if they didn’t get there, hundreds more would be inconvenienced.
It was the same in the leggings incident a few weeks before – by the time the airline revealed that the travellers were relatives of staff flying for free and held to higher dress standards than paying customers, the narrative had escaped.
But of course, by then it was probably too late anyway. Because of the video. From now on, every incident will see video emerge. And that changes the game for issues management.
United, of all brands, should be aware of the dangers of viral video.
United Breaks Guitars was one of the first brand protest videos to go viral. It was created in 2009 after a musician witnessed staff manhandling his instrument and the airline refused to do anything to make it right.
Nearly 17m views and a decade later it still haunts United.
Bu the social game has even changed since then. Where you have hours to formulate a response, you now have minutes. And in something like this, minutes become seconds.
In those few seconds of watching that video, millions of people around the world – who could all visualise themselves being that passenger – began to hate United.
This morning, Australian time, United tried for a fourth time, after its share price began to crash, wiping a quarter of a billion dollars off its market capitalisation as a boycott loomed.
Two-and-a-half-days after its crisis began, it finally began to hit the right tone – probably much too late.
I suspect that few people will believe the sentiments, given the previous messages.
Brand love takes much longer.
If I had to pick a brand that I love, Qantas would be in my top 10. Top three, actually. Like a lot of Australians, if the surveys are to be believed – more than Vegemite, apparently.
But that’s been built up over hundreds of brand experiences, advertising messages and news stories.
That cumulative effect of all of the positive experiences, brand messages and news stories means that like many Australians, when I think of Qantas, I think of things like safety, and of going home. I don’t generally think of overbooking and violence.
And of course, what you don’t think of is all the times Qantas did not blow the big calls.
You don’t get much credit for the mistake you didn’t make, but it does avert the sudden onset of brand hate.
Remember QF32 – which nearly became Qantas’s first lost plane when the Rolls Royce engine blew up in 2010 as it climbed out of Singapore?
It’s well known that it was the airline’s finest hour in terms of airmanship, but there were decisive leadership decisions on the ground too – before the facts were known.
CEO Alan Joyce had one hour to decide what do to, as the airline’s other 11 A380s were lining up to take off at various points around the world.
While United would still have been writing non-committal tweets, Qantas had grounded its entire A380 fleet until the engine problem could be understood. That was gutsy, given the disruption it cased. But later it proved to be correct.
Other airlines kept flying their A380s, and later it proved to be a systematic fault inside the engine that had to be corrected worldwide.
Culture creates actions, and action creates reputations.
Years later, I was onboard a Qantas A380 flight captained by Richard de Crespigny, the man who had led the QF32 crew that day.
During the flight, he toured the cabin, explaining the workings of the plane to a woman who was scared of flying, and happy to chat to anybody who worked out who he was.
Famously, when he landed the stricken QF32, he gave all the passengers his mobile number in case anybody wasn’t properly looked after.
It’s culture. The difference between United and Qantas as airline brands is cultural. PR and communications can only go so far.
In United culture, you have a captain who authorises a paying passenger being taken off by force – and a communications team who think the problem was that he wouldn’t get off.
In Qantas culture you have a captain who spends his flight break talking to passengers who are scared of flying. That’s PR.
Communicators of the year? If I was the PRWeek jury, I’d be asking to do a recount.
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.
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“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.
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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.
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They do but it’s an additional fee.
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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
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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]”
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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?
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It takes a lot to kill a brand Tim. They take a long time to build but they don’t die easily either.
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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
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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
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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Actually, it was a flight to Auckland. In that case it was Boeing that suffered the brand damage not United.
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Careful now.
Big companies don’t necessarily survive: Pan-Am, Enron, Commodore Computers, Compass…
Arrogance towards customers is always rewarded.
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United seem to have had a Phoenix-esque survival.
http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/UAL/tab/2
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