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“Delve is an insight engine that transforms how brands understand their world.”
With every story, thread and meme battling for our attention, what do we focus on and care about? Communications pros Sean Garrett and Allison Braley—trusted by Twitter, Amazon, Meta, Slack, Bain Capital Ventures, and more—talk with those shifting the future of communications and who pays attention to what.
Sean 00:01
Welcome to Attention Shift. We unpack where communication and communications is headed. I'm Sean Garrett and we’re supported by Delve with the top-level context engine for comms. My co-host, Allison Braley, and I talk to industry experts about how we show up and get our message across in an era of limited time and shortened attention spans. Let's dive in.
Sean 00:28
All right. This week on Attention Shift, we'll talk to Josh Earnest, whose career has taken him from the White House where he served as Press Secretary to the Comms Control Tower now at United Airlines as EVP of Communications and Advertising.
Allison 00:41
Yeah. I mean, Josh has dealt with a lot in his roles, obviously, between the White House and United. He's kind of more highs and lows than a Boeing 737, at this point.
Sean 00:50
Wow. Allison, coming in strong.
Allison 00:53
Coming in hot with a joke. And a big laugh from you, may I add?
Sean 00:55
Wow, it's really impressive.
Allison 00:57
I was hoping at least for a courtesy laugh. It didn't happen. I guess that's… I guess that's happening now. Thank you, Sean.
Sean 01:05
Well, more laughing just at the situation than really at your joke. But hey, one thing Josh has to contend with, which is a broader conversation around kind of United and probably pretty much all airlines and all airplane things at all times. So he talks about being accosted at, you know, barbecues, and someone tells them about, like, Hey, I lost my luggage. Here's my story. Or the last time I flew across the country, there was a storm and I had this delay, and I want to talk to you about it now. And the one thing that I think you'll get on the conversation with Josh is you can’t find a more polite Midwestern soul than him. So I'm sure he handles it with great grace, knowing him, and great calmness. But man, that would be hard.
Allison 01:58
You or I would walk around with like…
Sean 1:58
No, I would just be like shit. I don't like that's not even my airline. What are you talking about? That didn't happen. That didn't happen to my thing.
Allison 02:02
I'm not flying the freaking plane, man. Like, here's an email you can send a message to if you've got beef, but, like, I'm here to eat some ribs.
Sean 02:11
Have you? Have you ever sent, like, a DM, like, you know before? Like, there's a phone number… 1-800
Allison 02:15
Okay. Have you? Have you heard of the internet? You could, you could Google where to send that complaint, but no, that's why it's good that he does what he does, and not me. But I was, I was super impressed with his… To your point, kind of like a plum in dealing with those instances. And I feel like at a at a macro scale, it feels like United can be a lightning rod online, as with all airlines, everybody's got a complaint on social about this or that? I think, like last week, it was like customer support chatbot sending some response. So he has to sort of be really magnanimous about that stuff. Other brands that have been dealing with social quite a bit lately… My personal favorite, HBO Max. I am a huge HBO fan. If there's an HBO show, I will watch it. And they rebranded as Max, went back to HBO. Maybe it's the HBO Max now, and in advance of knowing they were going to get dragged for that online, I thought did a really good job getting out ahead of it and sort of dragging themselves and making the memes so that other people could share them. And it seemed to blunt a lot of the impact that… You can dunk on yourself and actually have a pretty good time and show a sense of humor, but if other people do it to you, you look sort of out of touch. And so HBO is always really good, I think, at being on top of culture. The other one for me in the last couple of weeks that follows that sort of Josh Earnest, have great employment empathy playbook was the McDonald's Snack Wrap deal, and they… Basically fans had been mobilizing, asking them to bring back the Snack Wrap, and they ultimately did that. It's funny, I am not a person who eats there a ton, but my kids love it. They love the Happy Meal. And if I'm gonna order something there, obviously I'm going to demolish some french fries and a Sunday. But the Snack Wrap is like a real meal item that I like. I can eat. I like that thing.
Sean 04:08
I don't think, I seriously don't think my kids want to. I think they probably want to have gone to McDonald's twice in their life.
Allison 04:14
Okay, yeah, you're a better parent than me. We know.
Sean 04:18
I'm not saying that. I think it's insane.
Allison 04:21
Grew in your yard.
Sean 04:23
Oh, I hated McDonald's and Jack in the Box, like, all the time. That was like, our weekly family dinner every week, growing up for a long time, was going to Jack in the Box.
Allison 04:33
I sometimes it's like, just easier. It's the path of least resistance. It's a drive through. You can be wearing your pajamas, and we'll get you some Mickey D's. But I was impressed with how they really connected it to like, Hey you. You guys spoke and we answered, We are bringing back this thing, which, you know, at a business the size of McDonald's, is no small feat. And so whether or not they intended to bring it back anyway, and therefore stoked the sort of like petitions to bring it back, or it truly was a response to it. It felt really, I think, good for fans, and was a nice moment for them. Where, like a lot of the you know, quick service restaurant brands are great on social. They're funny, they're witty, they're kind of mean. But this was like… and it felt like wholesome and good to see people kind of get what they want. So I always love looking at those kind of social, the brands that are such lightning rods on social, and how they stand out.
Sean 05:25
What do you, I mean, what about like, what, what do you think is kind of behind that? Have you talked to folks who do the strategy there? Or, you know, because I'm always curious about kind of the behind the scenes on this stuff.
Allison 05:39
Some. Yeah. I mean, I think, like, having a leadership that under is sort of in on the joke and gets it and or really trusts you, is key. Like, making fun of yourself for a name change is not something that a lot of companies would be able to get. Like, I don't know if you remember, this was a long time ago. I'm dating myself. But like, Tronk. Do you remember Tronk that was like a ludicrous name change that got so made fun of. And I wonder if they had just sort of acknowledged in the announcement that it was funny and silly. Maybe that goes better for them. I don't know, but clearly they didn't have a leadership team that like got it. What do you what do you think? What do you think leads to brands making these kind of good decisions?
Sean 06:20
I mean, I think it's, ultimately… There's a lot. I mean, I think it's basically being aligned around what you're trying to accomplish, and, like, who you're trying to reach, is a really good start. You know, kind of knowing, kind of the red lines that you're not going to cross, and then just being really flexible with everything else. And I think it helps a lot. And I think one thing that Josh talks a lot about is when you could have a lot of these different functions under one team. You know, for Josh, like, he's at United, he's corporate communications, internal communications, social advertising. He runs advertising and and I think that allows like, for a lot of like, I think, more flexible work, that can be a lot more creative, and, you know, a lot more multi-dimensional, and only people who care about like, those different names of things work inside the company, or, you know, try to sell to those different departments. Like the consumers, and everybody else just doesn't, even the employees don't really care, like, the nuances there, yeah.
Allison 07:25
Yeah. I mean, I was amazed at how humble he was about that, too. He was just sort of like, you know, in the pandemic, like, you know, we made some changes and, like, I got it was this huge promotion. Like, it's a big deal that he's running all of this, but in classic Midwestern fashion, he's sort of like, yeah, like, now I do all this stuff and not like, I'm so great, and that's how, that's how I got to do this. And it's funny, my own journey to leading marketing at a much smaller scale than Josh, but I was working for a startup, and just sort of saw an opportunity to start doing market research. And I did some qualitative research with customers and potential customers, and came back with some recommendations around the brand without sort of intending to take over marketing or whatever. And they were like, Hey, why don't you do that some more, and lead marketing. So I don't know… To comms people out there who have curiosity and a desire to do more of that type of work, I always just sort of say, like, what's stopping you? And that's one of the better, nice things to me anyway, about working for smaller startups is often there's a ton of opportunity that nobody's working on, and you can, you can use that moment to grow your career. There's no gatekeeping, that kind of thing.
Sean 08:32
Yeah, I think, I think, you know, just a lot of these, like the terminology, whether it's social media, you know. So if social is a really great example, and we've talked about this, you know now, but I think, you know, when social started, it was really social marketing in a classic case, and now it's become more social communications. And again, like, who really cares about that designation? But if you're, if you're doing this kind of work full time, you maybe care about them more. And I think, like, the the big difference is, is that, you know, at some organizations, and maybe even at organizations now, they have different, you know, you look at different quote, unquote channels, and, like, it's a term also I hate, but like, Tiktok is one channel, LinkedIn is another channel, X is one channel, Instagram is a channel. And you might have different teams managing different quote/unquote “channels.” And I just again, I think, like as much as you can bring that together and make it very fluid and make them work and kind of flow from each other, you're gonna have, like, so much more impact. And then getting into this, like, stuff around, well, we're only trying to reach this, you know, sell to this one audience here and this other audience. We're just trying to reach the consumer. No, it's kind of like everybody is there and and so I. I thought Josh had a great example, which is probably one of the most traditional advertising parts of the world, which is basically billboards. He's like, you know, one of the biggest reasons why they run billboards in airports is because, like, that's effectively internal communications to…
Allison 10:18
That fascinated me, too. Yeah, there's the medium in the message too, right? And oftentimes we let them tail wag the dog, I think sometimes in terms of the medium trumping the message of sort of like, well, I run this channel, and so I own what we say here, and I own this that's, you know, to your point, the total wrong way to think about things.
Sean 10:38
Bunch of folks at Mixing Board got together in a meeting in New York, and we had this conversation around, if you were to start a communications team, like, where would you start? And, you know, many people, very earnestly, started going around the table saying, Well, this one job and this one other job, this other job. And I've just thought there was nothing wrong with that. They're all like, really good suggestions. But then someone mentioned, you know, you really just start with figuring out, like, mirroring, like your, you know, your team to like the audiences that you're trying to reach, and really understanding what they care about, what motivates them, and then designing around that. And like, what's the most like, what's the biggest impact that you possibly can have, like with these first group of people to reach those audiences, and, you know, for these x reasons and for this objective, and for all the things you're trying to do. So no one's starting with, well, you start with a corporate communications person, and then you add an internal communications person.
Allison 11:39
It’s letting dictate strategy, which is, you know, in any function, probably a bad idea. And you know, especially and potentially archetypally in comms.
Sean 11:48
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Allison 11:51
Well, you talked about the earnest discussion you had with the mixing board members, and just to end on another plane, sorry, I'm trying my best here. We'll hear from Josh next. He obviously is a longtime political operator turned head of comms for United during some really wild times, and so we spoiled a couple of those anecdotes in this upfront, but there is still a lot to learn from Josh. So let's hear from him now.
Welcome Josh. So great to have you. President Obama surprised you on your last press briefing, and he said a whole bunch of nice things about you, one of which was that you're always prepared, always courteous, and always try to make sure to share with the press as much of our thinking, policy and vision as possible. How do you think those principles have carried over from being a press secretary into the corporate world with United?
Josh 12:38
Let me start Allison and Sean by thanking you for having me on the show. It's fun to get a little time to talk shop with you guys. And I'm looking forward to the conversation today. I mean, there are so many interesting ways. I was actually just talking about this with somebody earlier today. There's so many interesting ways in which there is a linkage between the experience that I had in politics, which is most of my career at this point, and the seven years of experience that I've had in the corporate world now. But let me talk to you about the one that is most important and the one that I think is most interesting, which is when I was working in politics, even before I had a fancy job at the White House, people would come up to me all the time and say, why don't you guys do this? Why don't you say that? What about this argument over here? Why did you put that guy on TV? I have a suggestion for what your bumper sticker should be. Everybody had an idea. They wanted to talk about it, and that, like, made me like, more fun, potentially than I otherwise would be at like backyard barbecues and cocktail parties. But people had this, like, visceral personal reaction to an opportunity to talk about politics, and the exact same thing is true about the airline business. The second that I meet somebody at a backyard barbecue or cocktail party and tell them I work at United Airlines. You can start the clock and 99 times out of 100 before you get to 60 seconds, they are telling me about their last flight, whether on United or some other airline, and asking questions or giving, quote, unquote free advice that was worth exactly how much I paid for it. But that's true of the airline business too. Our brand is really big at United people care a lot about the brand. They care a lot about our business, and we are up close and personal, and they are up close and personal with our brand. And it is the thing that often makes my job a lot more fun, and there are times where it occasionally makes my job a little harder. It is what's fun about this business to more directly answer to your question. What it means is, it means that people have high expectations of our brand. When we were operating at the White House and I was standing at the White House podium, I knew that the expectations were high. The expectations were high that I knew it when I was talking about that I would know what the President was thinking about it, that I was going to be honest, that I would tell the truth, that I'd be prepared. And our customers at United have the same expectation of our brand at United, that we're going to be honest with them, that we're not just going to be bystanders when things go wrong, that even if it's not our fault, we're going to try to solve the problem for them. Those are the kinds of things that translated from my job in the political space to my job at United Airlines.
Sean 15:16
So, but Josh, I just want to ask real quick before we get to the kind of the flow of this. In the last four or five years, and if you're sitting next to someone who's in politics and maybe, like, associated with, like, a key political figure, Are you not giving them advice?
Josh 15:32
I will say that having been on the receiving end of so much free advice, I very carefully pick my moments in which to share that advice. So I won't say that I've never shared my free advice about politics, but I try to be judicious about it.
Allison 15:47
Yeah, backseat driving is always so welcome. You know more specifically, are there tactics or lessons that you borrow from the political arena and apply to Corp comms, and are there lessons all of us as communicators can take away from that?
Josh 16:01
Yes, I think the most important one is this colorful cliche that if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. And that was certainly true in politics, and that's really true of large brands like United in this media environment. You have to be out there telling your story. This was something that was not typically true in the airline business, and it's because people do have such a close personal association with our brand. There are people that are still mad at us because we lost their bags back in that snowy day in Denver 20 years ago, and it totally ruined their weekend trip. And I understand. I remember some of the bad experiences that I had as a commercial flyer way before I worked in the airline business. So I understand why those things stick with you. There's a reason to be reticent. But this was like when we were going through COVID. All the airlines, including United, were front and center in the telling of the story about the negative impact that COVID was having on the macroeconomic environment, right? You guys remember the pictures of the planes parked in the desert or the vacant terminals and otherwise busy airports in the middle of the day, and everybody was watching the economic impact of the spread of the Coronavirus through the eyes of the airline business. And so it meant that there was some reticence about, how are we going to go and tell people that it's safe to travel? Or can we even encourage people to travel in this environment? And we did change our posture, to be more forward leaning and willing to engage and say to people, yes, you have to wear a mask on the plane. And yes, it's safe to travel. And here are the reasons why. It did subject us to tough questions, but that was what was needed in order to lift up the brand.
Sean 17:55
Josh, I'm actually curious about COVID, because there was such a huge reset on so many fronts. Obviously a huge, like a massive reset for the travel industry, and it was like this existential moment for the industry. What were you able to kind of take positive from that reset? There was like this, you know, block of time, or you couldn't use it, but then when you did use it, it was really hard. But I almost feel like there's like, a, you know, even for United, there's a before COVID and after COVID. What does that look like?
Josh 18:21
Yeah, for us, it's probably more pronounced than it is for most travel brands that you interact with. And I remember having this conversation with my team. I was still relatively new to the company. I'd only been to company about a year or so, and I remember sitting down with the team a week or so before we all went remote, and I remember saying to them, it’s a really scary, uncertain environment. You can count on me to be honest with you about what's happening. I owe that to you. I don't know what's going to happen, and I understand why you're going to be worried about that. But here's one thing I want you to keep in mind, like, depending on how you measure where people are in this industry, we're either third or fourth. If we're about to go through a dramatic disruption, we've got a lot less to lose than the other guys. So let's embrace this opportunity to reset and to do things differently, and to think about how to do things differently. I think even at that point, you know, early March, I didn't realize how profoundly we would have to reconsider and rethink so many elements of our business, but we were willing to face the music on this before our competitors. And you know, the thing that really triggered this change for us, is in July of 2021. Long before we were all the way back, people were starting to travel again, but the business was certainly not healthy. We made the largest aircraft order purchase of any airline in history. We agreed to purchase 700 Boeing airplanes. And it was a big bet on the return of travel, and it was a big bet on people wanting to fly in a modern aircraft that was outfitted with all of the customer comforts that they were associated with, and we made that bet at a time when we were losing money and people weren't flying. But it has paid off in spades. A year later, we made the largest wide-body aircraft purchase order, also through Boeing, and we have never looked back and by facing the music on COVID and then betting on a return sooner than any of our competitors. That has paved the way to our move to the top of the industry post-COVID.
Sean 20:15
It was such a moment where people were obviously thinking day to day and very near-term thinking, what about your experience? Maybe in the White House made you think more long-term, and kind of like the long arc of progress type thing. It takes a lot of confidence to be in a situation like that and make everybody calm and look forward and see this as an opportunity versus a challenge?
Josh 20:38
Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm so glad you asked it, because it's also a relevant point to one that Allison was alluding to, which is sort of this comparison between like, working in politics and working in the corporate world. The thing I have found, actually, and this is a compliment to the corporate side. The corporate side does a better job of planning long-term. The political thing. And I think it's only gotten worse, frankly, since I left, is so focused on the next election. You know, even the current administration has like, a quote, unquote long runway to go and get things done. I use a lot of airline metaphors these days. Their runway as people are, like, designing it up is like, at this point, like 16 months, right? Because as we get into the midterm elections, you know, people are sort of saying they gotta reset so they gotta hustle and get things done. They don't have the luxury of really thinking about what are the long-term plans that they wanna try to implement. In the corporate world, we do have a little bit more latitude to do that now, we still have quarterly earnings calls, which in some ways are the chief headwind to that. Right? You know, every three months, our investors want to know, like, how we're spending the money we have and how did we do in the last quarter, and how we're going to do in the next but if you can start hitting your targets over quarter basis, you can start to get investors to listen a little bit more to what we want to do next year and where we want to be three years from now, and that is also an important part of the story about what's happened at United we did start performing in a way that was reliable. It wasn't always that. It wasn't always top of the industry, but we delivered on what said we're going to do, and it opened people's minds to this bigger strategic conversation. So our ability to shift to that long-term focus was really important. Now one of the reasons we're able to do that is we got a bunch of funds through the Cares Act that gave us the financial stability to weather the COVID storm without having to lay people off. And so we were only really able to start turning to that long term focus once we got that backstop from the federal government.
Allison 22:36
So Josh, you've been both the architect behind the message, so sort of the back of the house comms person, as we think about it, the traditional comms person, but you've also been the messenger. You've been the face delivering the message. So how does that shape how you think about comms, and what can we learn from that?
Josh 22:54
That's an interesting observation. I mean, in some ways, I've mostly pivoted back to being behind the scenes, which I'm pretty comfortable with. There was an interesting time during COVID where we were going through a CEO transition in the midst of all this. So there was more of a responsibility I had, sort of, in a very unexpected way, to do more, you know, in front of the camera, delivering of the message in a way that I hadn’t since my White House days. And that was a really fun experience. It was a way, again, I was still relatively new at the company. It was a way for me to add some unexpected value, to sort of earn my keep around the company, as largely because of some of the relationships that I had built from my job in the White House, knowing a bunch of the national TV talent, you know, I mean not, you know, with all due respect to my counterparts at, you know, Southwest and American and Delta, I could get booked on Good Morning America in a way that they couldn't, and that spared me the questions about, like, How much money are you losing this quarter? And gave me an opportunity to really deliver a message of the day, which at that point was mostly on safety. So there have been times, even in this behind the scenes role, where I've, you know, sort of, you know, dusted off the camera on my on my computer to do the front of house, more public facing stuff. I definitely think that having had that sort of public facing role gives me more insight into how best to prepare a principal who's getting ready to go face the cameras. You know, in some cases, it's about giving them confidence that what I'm telling them is true and that they should feel comfortable using it. In other cases, it's like last minute advice about how to handle or potentially even sort of sidestep a really tough question if that's coming. You know, the other thing that I think about on this is, it's easier when you're behind the scenes to try to think two and three steps ahead. You know, oftentimes when you're in front of the camera, you're thinking about, you know, how can I get in and out of this without causing too many problems? And that's the other thing that I, that I recognize from having had that responsibility, is when we're doing a prep session, I'll try to help people play chess rather than checkers. Here's how you can answer that question, because here's what the follow up may be, and then you're leaving yourself room then to go, be able to go and say this. Helping people think it through in that way is something I think that I do better now than I did before I had that public facing role.
Sean 25:16
So, Josh, I mean, obviously we're talking talking nuts and bolts Media Relations stuff here, which is kind of the core of what you did in the White House and what you kind of started with at United and but you obviously have a much bigger job. You've been running brand, but last year, we're tapped to run advertising as well, and it's a much broader remit. And obviously, when you see something like that from the outside you see a comms leader and a comms team gaining credibility with an organization if they're going to be asked to do so much more. And I'm curious about this evolution at United what, what did it take, and what could other comms teams learn from in kind of that broadening of function and role?
Josh 25:59
Yeah, this is also sort of a fallout from COVID. And so it was in the midst of COVID, you know, we had to do some downsizing on our management team, and that did mean that some more responsibilities got sprinkled around to the team and and more of the advertising marketing functions came my way and got integrated into my team in ways that have been really, really helpful for us. There are a couple of things that we've learned. You know, one is, one of the benefits of this is we have gotten our advertising function closer to working at the speed of PR and social media. Recognizing that sense of urgency and being able to turn things around quickly is not something you typically associate with advertising organizations, and sometimes there are good reasons for that, but where there are times where you can execute something creative fast, there can be a real premium for that, particularly in an age of digital out of home is something that we've been able to really capitalize on, to amplify some of the things that we've been doing.
Sean 26:55
So so like, what's a good example of that?
Josh 26:57
So a good example of that is we did something in the Biden administration, again, in all amid all the supply chain disruptions. Do you remember there's this controversy about baby formula? And shortages?
Sean 27:06
Yep, yep.
Josh 27:08
So we actually volunteered our services. There was ample baby formula in Europe, and so we were flying it as cargo to the United States. And so we did one of those events on the tarmac at Dulles where we had a whole pallet of baby formula, and the vice president actually came and sort of said that, you know, baby formula is coming, and thank the United Airlines for the role that we played in getting that here we had a picture of that image with a little bit of text on digital billboards in airports all across the country. The next day, this is like a relevant piece of news. It was a way for us to, for our brand to show up in a really positive way. We're doing something to help a really sympathetic group. And we were able to capture a picture of that image and put it on a huge billboard, you know, on multiple huge billboards all across the system, so that our customers who are walking through airports the next day could see it. That kind of quick turnaround is not the kind of capability you typically associate with advertising, but we needed our creative team to think about, what should that image and what's the text going to look like? How does it go together? How do we mock that up from a design perspective, and then how do we get that out from a, you know, from a, you know, from a media placement perspective. The other thing that we have done, which is also a lesson from the from the comms world, and Sean, this is something that you know, you and I were talking about when we first met 10 years ago, is thinking about, like, how do you have a social first strategy and not just sort of run a PR strategy, where you bolt on some social media component. The same is true in advertising, right? It used to be that you'd have advertising teams that would design these beautiful 30 second ads, and they'd say, we should run that on social too. And in some cases, that'll work. But what we actually think about it in the other way, and sort of think about, why don't we design creative that's specifically for social and that becomes part of an integrated paid media strategy where you're delivering a 30 second television ad on somebody's television screen at the same time you're delivering a seven second or 15 second ad to somebody's phone. That may be similar content, but it's cut up in different ways. Suits the platform much better. It just makes those messages much more effective.
Sean 29:11
I mean, do you feel like it makes sense at all to have even like social advertising and comps all split up? I mean, it seems like what you've done is be able to show how they could interoperate with each other on a pretty effective basis.
Josh 29:23
I think what we have demonstrated is that that if you put those things together, the rising tide looks all the boats right. By combining our PR and social and advertising functions, we made PR social and advertising each better because they could leverage each other's capabilities, you know. Well, let me give you one other quick example, which is we've also taken some social media content in the form of customer stories, where people have these, you know, can tell these stories on social media the extraordinary things that our employees on the front lines have done for our customers. We have turned those into 30 second TV ads, where we find that information on social media, and sometimes we'll even show some of the social media interactions in the spots. And it's really created this beautiful platform that we have, and it's and running now these customer stories that sort of show the heart of our brand. You know, it's easy to take, you know, a global airline with 110,000 employees and think of them as this corporate, faceless, you know, corporate behemoth, when the truth is there are, like, a whole bunch of people with really big hearts who are taking care of customers around the world every day. So opportunities to highlight that are often surfaced through social media and then amplified through our television advertising.
Allison 30:32
That brings me to a really related point, which is, most of the customer experiences unfortunately that people put out on social are not going to be positive. You know, my flight landed on time. Great job, United. It's more often going to be my flight was really late. My bag got lost. And, you know, I'm upset. So how do you make sure that the brand promise you put out there around service is actually delivered on by employees in real time, and bring that out into the world, which hopefully lessens the number of people who come up to you to barbecue and say, you know, Hey, Josh, you guys lost my bag in 1986.
Josh 31:06
Yeah, hopefully it does. I think the most important way we can impact that is when you can draw a connection between what's happening in on social media and what happens in the real world. So, there are definitely times this is really, really hard, even for an airline that's as big as ours and has a global presence like ours does. But you know, somebody this doesn't happen that often, but occasionally it does. Somebody will post on social media. I can't believe how rude my flight attendant just was to me. Maybe it's a source of misunderstanding, because our flight attendants are the best in the industry, and they're awesome, but something happens, somebody posts something on social media. The single most effective thing that we can do when that happens, with the exception of de-escalating on the plane, if there's an incident, is to have somebody on the ground. Them, meet the plane and catch them as they're walking off the plane, and say, Hey, I saw your tweet. I'm really sorry about what about what happened is everything okay, you're doing all right? Can I help you find the you know, your the you know, the way, the baggage claim, so you can get your bag? People, many times when they're popping off on social media, they just want to be seen. And what better way to do that than to have like, a smiling, caring person meeting that person as they get off the plane, saying, I'm really sorry about your experience. And it if we there are lots of occasions where we've actually been able to take a situation that looked like it was going sort of in the wrong direction and turned it around into a genuine positive as a result.
Sean 32:33
Speaking of, what I mean, like, I guess, how do you prevent that in the first place? And you know, as you've taken this journey of evolving United's brand and making, I think, you know, I think, frankly, United’s done a fantastic job in the last seven years or so, pretty much since you've been there, Josh, you know, becoming a bit of a lightning rod to being more of an empathetic resident brand in terms of customer service. And I would assume a part of that is getting kind of the frontline employees, you know, on board with, you know, the program. But the frontline employees like, how do you get them to live out the brand values? How do you get them to know about what you're up to and what you're doing, or the latest, like, new development? How do you get them on the same page, and hopefully get them in a place where, you know, just in a natural day-to-day basis, they're, they're living out kind of your brand in the best way possible?
Josh 33:30
Yeah, that's a great question, and one that we spent a lot of time on, and it's actually a good example of the other benefit I was going to cite, of the combination of our comms and advertising team. And it is, it is this, that, you know, when we really dug into our employee communications, which is something we take really seriously, at United engaging our workforce. We have tools that are available to us that are more than just sending our employees an email or publishing we actually do publish something called United Daily that lands in the email inbox of every United employee, and it sort of summarizes the news of the day for United. And our team actually that produces that does a great job with that content, and the open rate is like through the roof. So so that is a really that's a viable option for us, and it works. But the other things that we've learned, there is no more avid consumer of news media coverage of United Airlines than United Airlines employees. Good or bad. When there's something great in the in the local newspaper, they put out their chests with pride. I work there. And when there's something bad, heads start to hang because they get discouraged. The other way for us to make this connection is actually our airport advertising. If you think about our airport advertising, it's focused on our customers. Those are the people that we're targeting. But who sees that advertising more than anybody else, our employees who are working in that airport? So a lot of times, you'll see airport advertising that features our employees front and center, that talks about why they're passionate about their job, or why they're doing a great job serving our customers. And the goal of that is to humanize our airline in the way that I was describing. Customer walks by and they say there are people united that actually care about working here, or they've got a special talent, or, you know, this, this pilot really this, this pilot's got our, you know, decades of experience. It inspires confidence in their and safety. But, you know, the other thing that it does when employees can see their colleagues, you know, on the on the Billboard, as they're walking through the terminal, it reminds them of why they work there, and it does sort of inspire that kind of pride. And so we found that our advertising tool has been really great for customers. I would argue it's been even better for our employees, because our “Good leads the way.” tagline is something that has really resonated with them. It's authentic to what our employees think is their job. Working at United Airlines, it's been a huge success, and the only reason it worked is not because people thought it was clever, but it worked not because people felt spun. In fact, it's the opposite. It's because it rang true to them, and it crystallized a mission and a sort of sense of we're in this together to do the right thing to really effectively serve our customers. And we found that that advertising campaign has been a huge success, not just because the impact it's had on our customers, but also because of the way it's really resonated with our employees and impacted the culture of United Airlines for the better.
Sean 36:33
Well, you, I mean, so you obviously been kind of updating and iterating how communications is done. You've been kind of the forefront of, kind of some key evolutions with advertising. You know, we're in a dawn of Gen AI, the media industry is rapidly changing. Gonna need to explain that to you so as media habits of your customers, when you think about what the comms at United looks like today and maybe three, five years from now, what do you think changes?
Josh 37:05
I think the undeniable that we'll be using more AI. Exactly how that manifests itself in anybody's like day to day work. I'm not smart enough to guess what that could be, but I think we're going to be using it more than we currently do now. Ironically, though perhaps ironically, the thing I think that will still be here. And I think this is something that people will still crave, is authenticity, that people will want to know that what we're saying is true, both factually, but also sort of rings true to the spirit of the airline. That's true if we're talking to our customers, it's true if we're talking to our employees. It's true if we're trying to, you know, convince reporters to write a story or not write a story about what we're doing, and so that, finding that authenticity and not losing it, and being willing to invoke our credibility is a really will be really important. So let me give you an example of that. One of the things that we found through COVID, and even we've even done this a little bit this year, is there's been times when people have been looking for some reassurance about the safety of their travel. And the reason that this matters to us as a business is, if there's even the with that flying on United Airlines is unsafe, then we don't have a business anymore. It is existential in terms of the risk that it could potentially pose to our business. So there and that's a good thing, because it means that our focus on safety is cleanly aligned with our customers concern about safety. And so it means that we are willing to spend some of our credibility, like put our credibility on the line, to tell people that air travel is safe and to explain to them why. And so whether that is actually you are safer flying on a plane in the COVID era without a mask, then you are in the terminal, airport terminal, because of the studies that we've done. Or, you know here, these are the redundancies that are built into the air traffic control system, and the kind of training that our pilots have that can give you confidence that even if there are some technology failures there, that you are 100% safe and even in some of those instances, when the airport gets backed up and your travel gets disrupted because of weather or because of air traffic control, the only reason that's happening is because we're focused on safety. It's not an indication that things are unsafe. It's actually an indication that we're taking measures to slow things down, to spread apart the airplanes to make sure that you are safe and that is going to delay your flight, or it's going to lead to a flight cancelation, or it's going to disrupt your travel plans, but it is worth it to keep you safe. And but, but our ability to say that with credibility and authenticity, the only way to answer that existential threat three to five years from now and that. And so that's, you know, even in an age of AI, that's not going to change.
Allison 40:16
Yeah, makes sense. And we always close out the podcast in one specific way, which is to ask people, given the title of the podcast, is Attention Shift, what's something that's capturing your attention right now?
Josh 40:29
The Royals have won 15 out the last 17 baseball games.
Sean 40:32
I figured as much.
Josh 40:34
That's the first time, or the only the second time they've done that in 35 years. So that definitely got my attention. I'm also coaching my 10 year old son's flag football team this spring, so maybe that's actually a better answer to your question. I have been thinking about 10 year old boy flag football a lot lately.
Sean 40:54
Are you like going on YouTube, looking up plays?
Josh 40:56
I have not resorted to that, but maybe I should, when you consider how we started out the season. But the thing that the two things I would say about this is this really did sort of start during COVID. This is the classic benefit of sort of the more flexible work environment that we all inhabit post COVID, or, like most people inhabit post COVID, but I do have a flexibility. At five o'clock today, I'm going to be standing out on our local park. I'm trying to get 8, or 9-10, year olds to pay attention to me. But it started, it started during COVID, you know, when we were fully remote at the beginning of COVID, you know. And over the summer, things were sort of slowly creeping back. That the spring baseball had gotten canceled, but summer baseball was starting. My son was in kindergarten. He really wanted to I was like, You know what? I can help coach, because I'm going to be here and and we, they did practices. I still remember this at 10am and we were having daily 11am executive teams meetings. And so I, like, talked to the other coach who was like, I can be here from 10 to 1045 but there are times where I started that meeting remotely on Teams, you know, with my little wireless headphones, and all of my colleagues were all for it. You know, like, enjoying that support from them was really great. But I've also been thinking about are, sort of like, what are the lessons that we've all learned? I played a ton of youth sports when I was growing up, and these lessons, I think, are actually more important than ever today. And in some ways, you learn a whole lot more of those lessons when you lose and when you win. This season, we had a we had a great season in the fall.
Sean 42:34
Are you just saying that because you're losing a lot, Josh?
Josh 42:38
What I am saying is we had such a good year last year that they bumped us up into the division, and we are in the highest division of fifth graders right now.
Sean 42:41
The kids don't want all the excuses, Josh.
Josh 42:43
And we've gotten crushed. But you know what I'll say is that the kids, the boys, have kept their chins up.
Sean 43:45
That's awesome.
Josh 43:47
But I spend a lot of time thinking about that these these days, in part because I want to teach these kids some lessons, but I'm also having a heck of a good time doing it.
Sean 42:59
Good job, Coach Earnest. It is fantastic to have you here. We really appreciate it.
Allison 43:03
Thank you so much.
Josh 43:05
This is really fun. I appreciate you including me.
Allison 43:10
Thank you for joining us today for Attention Shift, for today's deep dive on communication strategy. Check out our sponsors, Delve, at delve.news and Mike Worldwide at mww.com. Please like and subscribe to Attention Shift on Apple Spotify or your podcast platform of choice, and we'll see you in a couple weeks for our next episode.