Convenience or Coincidence?

 

There’s been quite a bit of blogging buzz -- namely e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com -- surrounding the New York Times report about Harry, a 9-year old boy, who received a brisk letter from Boeing Corp. in response to his innocent drawing of an airplane and his naïve request for them to manufacture it. Harry’s father, who is (conveniently or coincidentally) the CEO of an ad agency, blogged and tweeted about the incident, which generated online attention causing Boeing to rethink its response to Harry. Several questions have been raised on sensible folk’s blog and I figured I would offer my thoughts.

“Would airlines boycott Boeing for their “cold” response, or did they even notice?”

It would be highly unlikely that any airline would choose to boycott Boeing; boycott and go where? Boeing has over “12 000 commercial jetliners in service” worldwide, Ethiopia and Vietnam to name a couple, as well as here in the U.S., including American Airlines, Southwest, and Continental. It wouldn’t serve any airline’s bottom-line or relationship with Boeing to boycott Boeing over what is evidently just poor customer relations. What would be the point? I’m sure if asked they would feign to diplomatically condemn the response but they won’t go out of their way to take such aggressive action against it. Added to which, this type of response may not vary much from their own organization’s form letters. Had it not garnered so much negative public attention it may not have been viewed as inappropriate and the industry wouldn’t care. My theory is that Boeing, being involved more in B2B commerce, where everything is extremely formal and tightly corporate (they deal with governments and military), as opposed to B2C, is simply out of touch with basic rules of engagement when communicating with people, notable a 9-yr old. What do you think?

This leads to the next question, “would Boeing’s ‘cold’ response sway you to take an airline that uses another brand of plane?”

The unfortunate reality is no. When I board a plane, I have no clue nor am I concerned with the aircraft manufacturer’s people policy, are you? That’s way too back-end in the chain for me to be moved. Unless I become aware that they’re abusing workers or selling faulty engineering, or some other truly serious action, then my decision to use their products will not be influenced by the fact that they were not as nice as they could have been to a young boy. What I’m more concerned with is the specific airline’s safety record, their front-line customer relations, and of course PRICE. This is not to say I condone Boeing’s form letter or their excuse for not being more sensitive when responding.

“So is this another case of the online world puts another big bad corporation back in line…?”

You better believe it! The power of negative WOM (word-of mouth) on the Web can be and has been crushing for a business. And now, with the Internet and social networking media, where a negative comment goes viral in an instant, companies really should be more consumer conscious. A great recent example of this is the Neistat Brothers’ “iPod’s Dirty Secret” movie. Again spawned by a callous corporate response, this time of Apple to his concern as a consumer over his iPod battery, Casey Neistat took his displeasure to YouTube. The reported result was that Apple -- although they denied it -- moved swiftly (in days) to change its policy on replacement batteries. Check it out and tell me what you think.



Courtesy abcteach.


“…was it just a chance for Harry’s dad to get his company some free publicity, and how is it related to the dad’s agency’s crowdsourcing approach?” 
As a parent I would want to foster my child’s creativity and encourage them to take his/her ideas as far as they could go. What parent wouldn’t? Would I mail a drawing? I sure would. It wouldn’t be for my benefit but for the child’s. Did Harry’s father have more selfish intentions? Did he do it as a father or a CEO, who can say but him (and I’m sure he wont) but it became a serendipitous opportunity. No doubt, as a seasoned manipulator of marketing mediums and specifically crowdsourcing (the foundation of his agency Victors & Spoils), Harry’s father probably rightfully understood the value of the mob (so did Mark Antony in Julius Ceasar) as well as the potential reach of his posts. Could he have anticipated how far it would go and what impact it would have on Boeing’s PR or his ad company? I highly doubt it. 

And finally “is The New York Times at the forefront of e-marketing activity or are they just hard up for news?”

Frankly, what constitutes news? What makes this story any more or less important than another story and who decides? That’s the beauty of the Web, blogs and other user generated Web 2.0 mediums. The fact that The Times also has a blog and chose to report this gives it greater mainstream recognition, which adds to the national exposure and debate over this story – that’s a good thing; a great thing! Does it put The Times at the forefront? Not really. In my opinion, it indicates that they have embraced these social media forums as legitimate, news worthy sources and recognize that for the newspaper to remain a viable and relevant portal of information (as the road to extinction looms), they need to have their fingers on the pulse of social media’s beat. What’s your take?