Greyhound Comes Out Looking Pretty Good
December 9, 2011 by Nathan
Thanks to the 24-hour news cycle we now enjoy, everyone’s had the opportunity to hear about Alec Baldwin’s latest Words With Friends snafu. (As a big Jack Donaghy fan, I am going to avoid comments about Mr. Baldwin personally and go right to my favorite development in this very newsworthy saga.) When asked about the incident, he responded saying, that the flight attendants have made flying a “Greyhound bus experience.” 
When I read his comment earlier this week I cringed a bit for Greyhound. Dragging them into the fight seemed unfair regardless of how off-the-cuff the statement may have been. Well, it looks like Greyhound’s CEO, Dave Leach, didn’t appreciate the shot either and decided to very tastefully stand up for his company, sending an open letter to Mr. Baldwin touting Greyhound’s service. The best sections of the letter were summarized in this CNN article – http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/09/travel/alec-baldwin-greyhound-response/index.html?hpt=hp_c2 – including the CEO’s offer to meet Mr. Baldwin in New York and accompany him on a free trip to Boston so he could experience Greyhound’s service for himself.
Touché, Mr. Leach. Whether it was his idea or that of some very astute PR advisor, this response was pitch-perfect. It would have been easy to ignore it and let the “Greyhound bus experience” perception persist. Instead, Greyhound took this as an opportunity to change the conversation and has gotten national attention as a result. Who knows – maybe next time Mr. Baldwin will decide to go Greyhound.
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