The Sky Is Not Quite Big Enough
Dear @SouthwestAir, I’m on another one of your planes, safely seated & buckled-in again, waiting to be dragged off in front of the normies"
Do you remember the Motrin Moms incident? Do you remember how one lady who had some power online as a mommy blogger basically turned Motrin’s world upside down in the matter of two days? Well, it’s happened again.
Kevin Smith, director of the upcoming Cop Out and all around funny guy, is a “person of size” and he went through one of the most humiliating things that can ever happen to one of us “persons of size.” A spotlight was put on our problem that, believe me, we try very hard to hide (even if it’s impossible, and we know that). But let’s just call a spade a spade. It is possible to be too fat to fly, which is anyone of any “size” with Southwest Airlines. Kevin Smith was apparently one of these people who are too fat to fly, and unfortunately for him that fact was pointed out in front of a packed plane of over 200 people.
What Southwest Airlines didn’t anticipate, however, is that Kevin Smith is a guy who has embraced social networking as much as anyone possibly could. Not only does he have a very popular podcast called “SModcast” but he also has over 1.6 million followers on Twitter!
That's a lot of people interested in what Kevin has to say.
As I can completely understand, he was very upset and very angry, and he told the world. Southwest Airlines, not to be outdone, replied to Kevin in a very “we’re so into Twitter” kind of response from their 19 year-old Social Networking Specialist (that’s sarcasm, by the way).
@ThatKevinSmith hey Kevin! I’m so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we can make things right, please follow so we may DM!
Yes that’s right. They asked him to follow them.
The next day, this is the Southwest Airlines blog.
A very corporate, lawyer-like response to cover their asses. Also, they lied quite a bit and even offered a whopping $100 gift card — as if he is going to fly with them again. Clearly he refused.
If you look at the response the vast majority are on his side; a few (like CNN) responded in a “why is that person allowed to exist” kind of way (I would have chosen a descriptor that ends with the word “bag,” but I’ve got to use some tact and try to at least keep it a little clean). This really does beg the question: why is this kind of discrimination allowed, or even encouraged in some cases?
Granted Southwest Airlines did respond to Kevin on Twitter… a lot more than most companies would do. But at the same time this cou ld have been handled much more appropriately than offering a $100 voucher and a few apologetic tweets. Realistically, they should have seen this coming. I mean, it’s Kevin Smith! I would bet if you check out the Southwest numbers over the next few months they will reflect the negativity of this situation.
The moral of this story: look at the power that social networking has. Even a few years ago this wouldn’t have been as big a deal for Southwest Airlines. A little word of mouth, maybe a newspaper article and it would be over. Now, it’s actually quite insane how fast and big these kinds of things can go. He was on the plane going home no more than an hour later and already there were blogs written from many major sites. In fact, his wife knew before he even got home!
This is what we have to deal with now. Everyone in your company needs to be aware! Because of how things work today, a once upon a time small incident can turn into an international story in a matter of minutes. The only one that pays the price is your company.
Remember, everyone has a voice now.
Key takeaway: “I have seen hundreds and hundreds of tweets saying they will never fly Southwest Airlines again.”
Check out the full story here and here.
Also on the same note Kevin met this poor girl on the same flight
I’m trying to look at this as purely a story of how powerful social networking is (I mean, he was asked to be on Letterman over this) but it enrages me to the point where it’s difficult to not go into a full on hate-filled rant about it in this blog.
I’d like to end by saying, if that happened to anyone else of size who didn’t have the accomplishments and therefore ego of someone like Kevin Smith, they would be devastated. Can you imagine the pain someone would go though? Someone like Natalie?
What do you think of this situation in terms of the Internet explosion it has become, in terms of morality and ethics? Think about yourself, your family, your friends… would you want a problem you, or any of those close people in your life have, to be publicly pointed out and discriminated against? And most importantly, think about who you are and what your true feelings are on this situation. Are you the customer service lady or the flight attendant?
- Categories:
- news
- |
- Tags:
- ethics,
- social media
- |
- 6 Comments
6 Responses to “The Sky Is Not Quite Big Enough”
Leave a Reply
We're currently looking for:
General Enquiries (View Details)ARCHIVES
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
POPULAR TAGS
- advertising (9)
- Apps (1)
- augmented reality (1)
- branding (20)
- buzz (1)
- campaigns (1)
- change (2)
- clients (1)
- commercials (1)
- communications (2)
- community (1)
- contest (2)
- customer service (6)
- design (4)
- education (1)
- employees (1)
- environment (1)
- ethics (9)
- etiquette (1)
- history (1)
- ideas (3)
- illustration (1)
- jargon (1)
- marketing (9)
- news (1)
- outdoor (1)
- packaging (1)
- print (2)
- public relations (3)
- responsibility (12)
- retail (1)
- sex (1)
- soci (1)
- social media (24)
- social networking (2)
- sports (2)
- strategy (15)
- stress (1)
- technology (8)
- television (2)
- The Toy Factory (5)
- tips (4)
- tourism (1)
- traditional media (1)
- viral marketing (5)
- web design (1)
I’ve so enjoyed following (pardon the Twitter pun) this whole situation through the tweets, podcasts and media coverage that has emerged in the last few weeks. It’s been a powerful example of how important social media is in business and how influential 140 characters can be given the right publisher and right story. I think social media really forces businesses to up the ante with regards to how they interact with customers, how they respond to issues related to their products/services and how they conduct business as a whole.
Of all the people they could have picked on, they pick the guy with over a million captive and connected Twitter followers! Not that this kind of thing should happen to any human being, but it’s great that it happened to someone who would take the issue to the max and who can walk away relatively unscathed.
I think it sucks to be Southwest right now, but they still have room for some good service recovery. Yes, they’re trying to engage Smith (and others) via the same technologies that has been fueling the public response, but I don’t think they really understand what people want to see in response to such a situation. We’re not in a time where you try to avoid and minimize any public criticism of your business, brand or product/service. It’s all about being open and transparent, and about building trust in your brand with the strength of your recovery.
What a fantastic and extremely well written story! Bravo Idea Factory, Bravo.
@Kristen – I couldn’t agree more. All the same I don’t think they could possibly make up for something like that. That being said an open apology to the world would be a nice start.
If this were a woman, would we refer to her as a ‘person of size’? I think not…we would likely call her large woman, obese woman, fat woman. I marvel at how the rules for genders are still so out of whack.
Now all that being said, good for Kevin Smith…this would not get near the attention it deserves if it were a woman no matter how well known…just look at the ridicule Kirstie Alley receives as she battles her weight issues in public.
While I await true equality in the treament of ‘people of size’ I think this is a good first step.
I look forward to hearing more of Mr. Williams’ blogs in the future
Will definately come back again taking you rss feeds also, Gives thanks.