Southwest Airlines and Guitar Center have come under fire for their novel marketing “innovation,” and Twitter users aren’t having it, no matter how unconventional and unique it may seem. Both brands collaborated to gift flight passengers guitars and train them on how to play ukuleles.
The lesson, which took place during a flight from Long Beach, California to Honolulu, was the bone of contention for netizens who claimed the airline didn’t put introverts and those who might want their privacy into consideration before coming up with such a plan. Nevertheless, while there was no way the brands could have predicted how online users would have reacted, gift recipients seemed very happy in their group picture.
The post on Twitter
Southwest Airlines took to Twitter to share a picture that showed ukuleles displayed on a row of airline seats with the caption, “teamed up with @guitarcenter to surprise a flight full of Customers flying out of Long Beach with a ukulele and a lesson. By the time they arrived in Honolulu they were pros.”
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The airline added, “Don’t worry, y’all, everyone put their ukuleles away after 20 minutes since they had already mastered how to play.” Also, in a separate post by Guitar Center, they revealed that the training took place on a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-800 flight. In the course of the journey, passengers were put through the rudiments of playing the instrument by music experts, and they mastered how to play the song “Hello, Aloha. How are you?”
The flight seems to be a part of an ongoing promotional campaign. Southwest Airlines is collaborating with Guitar Center to organize a sweepstake that offers participants a fair chance to win a roundtrip flight with the airline alongside the added advantage of owning two Guitar Center ukuleles.
Twitter users react to the post
The post has since been met with criticism from people who feel it’s unfair for Southwest airlines to make people uncomfortable because of a photo OP or business promotion. The Atlantic journalist Tom Nichols revealed via Twitter that despite always rooting for the airlines, he couldn’t be hypocritical at this point about their actions: “I am a big fan of Southwest, but this might have made me homicidal.”
Another user asked, “What if you didn’t want to hear a cacophony of ukuleles? What if you just wanted to sit in silence for the entire flight and watch TV or read, like a regular flight?”
Someone also noted that having beginners play the musical instrument isn’t the best because, at that point, they are struggling between playing a sonorous note and making noise with the ukuleles. “Trapped thousands of feet in the air with 180 people strumming ukuleles,” the user offered. “They don’t know how to play … sounds like the opposite of “fun”…”