Nicely done US Airways

Did USAirways just commit the worst social media fail ever? There have been plenty where people just shake their heads and wonder, what the hell were they thinking or were they even thinking at all?

The #jennyasks fiasco was one of them.

But this may be the very worst.

I mean, I've heard of loving the airline you're flying on, but this is taking it WAY too far.

http://jalopnik.com/us-airways-just-tweeted-a-pic-of-a-woman-with-a-plane-i-1563097527

Warning: The link contains a picture that is EXTREMELY graphic. Do not click on the link unless you are 100 percent sure you can look at something of that nature.

If you can't click on that link, here's some text to give you the story.

For reasons no one can explain, US Airways decided to respond to the complaint of a woman who had a bad flight with a photo of a woman pleasuring herself with the large model of a Boeing 777
That's something you do not get to see everyday.
 
It seems like large-scale businesses have trouble with this model as well. In the past, public communication was via carefully crafted words/images/music/etc

That business model worked in the Mad Men days. Now, whether a company likes it or not, it DOES NOT have control of the conversation about it.

Think about it. Back in the days before YouTube allowed people upload anything they wanted to the internet for millions or billions of people to see, do you think we'd have seen this?



Smart companies will and have adapted. Companies that think they can still control the message will try to do so, and then they'll wonder, why isn't my marketing working?
 
Smart companies will and have adapted. Companies that think they can still control the message will try to do so, and then they'll wonder, why isn't my marketing working?

But incidents like this illustrate that even multinational brands aren't capable of controlling their image in this medium.
 
amair.PNG
 
If our society isn't truly broken, a stern warning from two agents in suits with earpieces should be enough.

...But knowing the state of our security apparatus, that girl is probably sitting in a dark cell in Jordan with no knowledge of her own whereabouts.
 
But incidents like this illustrate that even multinational brands aren't capable of controlling their image in this medium.

This was a screw up. I don't know why anyone would have that on their work computer to begin with.

But you're going back to the key phrase there, "controlling their image."

Companies do not control their image anymore. They don't control the flow of information. They can control what they put out, but what other people put out is something they have no control over.

Look at this poll. People listen to their friends and family first. That's not a surprise at all. But then you see that people who someone follows on social media is just as important as a magazine or newspaper article.

If you're not active in social media, you are losing a valuable tool to get people to purchase from you. You can blow it off, and say it's useless, or you can be smart like Boeing and embrace it.
 
This was a screw up. I don't know why anyone would have that on their work computer to begin with.

But you're going back to the key phrase there, "controlling their image."

Companies do not control their image anymore. They don't control the flow of information. They can control what they put out, but what other people put out is something they have no control over.

Look at this poll. People listen to their friends and family first. That's not a surprise at all. But then you see that people who someone follows on social media is just as important as a magazine or newspaper article.

If you're not active in social media, you are losing a valuable tool to get people to purchase from you. You can blow it off, and say it's useless, or you can be smart like Boeing and embrace it.

This was tweeted at USairways a few hours earlier. Perhaps the media person had CTRL-C that link and accidentally pasted it-in response to several people. Oops.
 
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