United Thinks You’re Cargo

Give an airline a captive audience & watch them stumble 

There you are, a truly captive audience in an airplane seat. All electronic devices are neutered. You’re asked to look at the headrest monitor in front of you for an important message. Queue the United music.

This is the moment a communicator dreams about – an unfiltered opportunity to reinforce a critical message, address an issue, enhance your reputation or promote a new product or service. Instead United talks cargo. And as a traveler, you know exactly where you stand.

There may be no industry more battered by its customers than airline travel. Every traveler has been on the wrong end of a delay, received inaccurate information about their flight and generally felt like livestock at some point during their trip. That alone makes every message from the airline to its customers critical – especially when the audience has nowhere else to look.

Following the United music, the video shows planes, flowers, produce, even little statuettes moving quickly to their intended destination. United executives begin to share the company’s roots as a cargo whiz, today moving everything from fresh fruit to the Oscars and even animals. It is beautifully produced, and the on-camera execs are spitting soundbites with precision and pace. After three viewings in April alone (and before I found the clip below on YouTube), I can tell you that United’s worldwide team of cargo experts moves animals ranging from aardvarks to zebras but they really focus on the Cs and Ds, logistics shorthand for cats and dogs.

It’s hard to be anti-produce or anti-pet, I’m a fan of both. But at the moment of truth when I’m receiving the message – United is moving me. I already feel like livestock because I’m not allowed to walk down the same terminal aisle as those with a seating number below 3. Meanwhile, my 110+ pound dog isn’t in my lap being reassured by your sound bites. Nor am I frankly, because the searing memory I have of United is of a healthy golden retriever dying in your care, regardless of the truth behind the claim.

After multiple viewings, I generally think this is the thrust of the video – a muted attempt to reshape the conversation following the battering the airline took on pet safety. But if I’m grasping to find the point of the video, United has a much bigger problem than me. I am one traveler on one flight on one day. With a captive human audience spanning multiple flights per day, you’ve fumbled your opportunity. Instead of one message to clearly remember, I have to guess its any or all of the following:

• You want me to send my award statuettes and produce through you.
• I should plan my next dog shipment with United because she is more important than an aardvark.
• I am cargo.

In its defense, United is a massive organization with competing priorities and numerous messages it wants to get across. This is likely the core of the issue here – I’m sure there are frazzled communicators navigating these conflicts, with a dose of internal politics thrown in for good measure.

While the following steps may not eliminate the politics, here are some core takeaways that will improve your next message:

• Think of the audience first, last and throughout the process: Where will they see the message? What mindset will they be in? Why should they care?
• Pick one message and focus: The list above says it all – what is the audience supposed to remember? That you’re a cargo company? That people are cargo? Or do you want to reassure them that if they ever need to move their beloved pet that they can trust you to get them there safely?
• Make the message authentic: If you are trying to restore the trust in your pet cargo business try being transparent about recent issues, the steps you’ve implemented to ensure safety and show how a pet gets from point A to point B with great care. If you’re trying to flex your shipping muscle pick something that your average traveler might actually ship (hint: not Oscars). Also, sound bites from an exec mean more to your internal team than your customer. Let them hear from employees they might interact with at some point in the process.

While each of these aspects is critical, it all revolves around your audience. Shape the focus of your message around what you want them to feel and do and be mindful of where they will be when they hear it. If they’re waiting for their plane to get airborne, a video about cargo doesn’t quite personalize the travel experience.