The first chapter of "Real-Time Marketing & PR" succeeded in getting my attention, mostly by using an example I was already familiar with. The chapter focuses on singer-songwriter Dave Carroll's successful vendetta against United Airlines after his Taylor guitar was broken in transit. Carroll posted a song on YouTube entitled "United Breaks Guitars" that described the incident and United Airlines' failure to compensate him, and the video went viral. I actually remember a few years ago, probably shortly after the video began to gain rapidly in popularity, when one of my friends showed it to me. I didn't put all that much thought into it at the time, but this chapter definitely shows pretty well how significant it was in terms of PR.
Inevitably, a viral video attacking United Airlines proved rather negative for the company's credibility, but it was interesting just how badly the company handled the situation, doing nothing publicly to counteract the damage. Meanwhile, both Taylor Guitars and Calton Cases (a guitar case manufacturer) managed to capitalize quite well off the situation through fast action. The chapter did make an interesting and compelling case for how money is neither the sole nor even most important factor in PR, but rather the ability to act quickly and effectively and seize whatever opportunities come up is what can make or break a company.
Even having seen the video the book discusses, I'd never put too much thought into what kind of impact it would have or what its overall significance really was, but the book did contextualize it pretty nicely, showing how it was a sort of David vs. Goliath victory of a little-known songwriter over a huge corporation, as well as just why that victory was able to happen and how the companies that did benefit were able to do so.
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