Friday, March 23, 2007

Scary brand loyalty

Reading Communication Overtones this morning, specifically Kami' s post on the three steps for corporations looking at getting started in social media, she points to Southwest Airlines' blog, Nuts About Southwest, as an example of a successful corporate blog. Interesting blog, but what really scared me was the level of 'brand commitment with which some of the customers were posting.

One fellow replies to a post about Southwest's policy of 'larger' passengers having to book 2 seats by saying "

Was a blog post really needed to point this out? It’s been enough bad PR for Southwest already, why call attention to it on a blog full of Southwest junkies where 95% could recite the entire Contract of Carriage word-for-word from memory anyways?

I know I can."

It's the holy grail; Southwest can sell that guy ANYTHING. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking him, but I can't see myself idly sitting on the bus reciting the terms and conditions of my ISP service provision agreement, even if they did sort out my line upgrade in less than 12 hours...