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You may not fly United or care about guitars, but that’s not the point of this article. There’s a lesson to be learned about customer service and brand management that we can all learn from what hit the net this week.

Three days ago, Dave Carroll, a musician I had never heard of before, dropped a bomb on YouTube. It’s a music video for a song titled United Breaks Guitars and it tells the story of a man who’s guitar was broken and who was subsequently given the run around for months before finally deciding to take his plight to the all powerful voice of the Internet. The video immediately became a viral hit with it’s catchy tune and pretty decent production value, mopping up a cool 700,000+ views on YouTube in just a few days. As a result, United Airlines has been doing a lot of apologizing and damage control.

Here’s the summary of what happened, according to Dave Carroll:

In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.

And the video:

And Dave’s not done. You see, he promised the last unhelpful person he talked to at United that he would write and release three songs about the event to let the world know how badly he was treated. The first two are done and Dave said it himself: “United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.” With all this attention, I’m sure United is by now clamoring to work with Dave and hopefully put an end to all the interviews and press he’s getting about this. Sadly, though, the damage is done and it could have all been avoided. If United Airlines employees had not (allegedly) banded together to basically try and brush the problem under the rug, Dave might be quietly sitting at home, wondering what he might write the next song about. Instead, they’ve (according to Dave’s side of the story) basically dared him to try and tell the world. Bad move, United.

As a guy who works really hard on brand building, this astonishes me. For $3,500, a huge company could have averted a PR nightmare. Instead, they’ve created one by shirking their responsibility to reimburse a customer for losses that were a result of their employees’ mishandling of luggage. Building a brand and making money isn’t enough. You need to manage your brand and look for and properly handle any problems before they become the next musical hit on YouTube. I hope United isn’t the only company taking notes this week.