For the few days I’ve been humming Dave Carroll’s song in my head – “Uniiited ….you broke my Taylor guitar”. If you haven’t seen the video, you need to take a look. Why I like the song so much is not so much for the tune alone, but the story behind it. You can see the video here.
You see, Dave had a little problem with United Airlines. Apparently his Taylor guitar (valued at about $3,500) was damaged during a flight due to negligent baggage handling. After nine months of getting the runaround by United, Dave took matters into his own hands. He created a simple music video called “United Breaks Guitars”. At last check, it has over 7.6 million hits on YouTube. Dave brought Goliath to his knees, by doing a simple video with the help of some friends and a few cheap props. It’s turned out to be a pr nightmare for United.
As I described in my book, the Goliath’s of the world (big companies, traditional media) just don’t get it. Cheap technology like the Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera and the Internet allow the people like Dave to expose them in an instant, or however long it takes to upload the video to YouTube. Not only that, it’s helping the small guy like Dave Carrol to build his personal brand.
Gary Vaynerchuck did what most other wine retailers would have never thought of doing at the time. He exploded his brand by creating Wine Library TV.
Don’t like video? What about audio? Start your own online radio show. Jack Spirko created his incredibly popular theSurvivalPodcast.com site by simply recording his show on a digital recorder during his daily 50 mile each way commute between Arlington and Frisco Texas.
There is plenty of opportunity for a maverick to build a name today. Get started.
