Uber and Facebook Apology Advertising

Recently, I couldn't help but notice a strange similarity between a couple of broadcast ads that seem to be in frequent rotation lately.

The first one I think I saw was for Uber, featuring their new CEO. The Uber ad, "Moving Forward", talks about how they are changing and fixing things (I think that the one on YoutTube that I've linked to is one of a series). Then, there's the Facebook commercial, "Facebook here together". 

Facebook's message, bundled with images of happy people, is along the lines of "recently, there was a bunch of scary news about how the Facebook platform was used to grab all of this knowledge about you, but we're changing, improving our privacy policies, so it's safe to go back on our platform.

Essentially, both of these are heavy rotation commercials for the apology tours that both companies have been making. But you have to wonder, what's the goal of these ads? If you deleted your Uber app, will seeing the CEO saying he's making things better give the service a try again? While Facebook has made some real ads, have they made really substantive changes to their platform? If you'd quit using the app, would this commercial make you go back?

And if this type of ad is not for the people who left, who is it for?

Is it for the shareholders? Do we think that an ad like this is going to move the share price of the stock?

I think it's more about trying to build the foundation for a PR messaging point. Essentially, we're not just on the apology tour, we're SPENDING MONEY to say we're sorry and move forward. This is an effort to help support some changes that are, in some ways, minor changes that don't really impact the core issues that took them into apology-land. In essence, these are an effort to inflate the "fixes" in an effort to minimize the original harm.

Anyway, no grand take-away from this one. As I watched these ads, I couldn't help but reflect on whether I could recall other companies doing similar apology ads. I was trying to imagine what an IBM apology ad might look like. The closest thing I could initially think of what Domino's did with this where they call out quality complaints and promote their attempts to change. I actually liked this campaign -- I feel like there's a broad perception that Domino's pizza quality isn't high -- but I haven't purchased a pizza from them since... probably college. 

Then I remembered this "we're sorry" ad from BP after the massive Deepwater Horizon spill. Oops, I accidentally linked this to the Southpark episode where they were parodying the BP ad. Yeah, I think that's an example of how this kind of ad really fails.

Macworld on the end of the Apple Airport

I've been thinking a lot about Apple's decision to kill the Airport Wireless router line. Yesterday I went searching for this post that I remember someone writing after Steve Jobs passed away. The post relayed a story from one of the people in a meeting with Jobs at a time when they were talking about adopting wireless networking -- and the vision that Jobs had to look beyond the cost of the technology at the time and drive the vision of WiFi on all of their systems. It was such a great story that it still sticks with me today.

In the search for that story, I came across this article from Macworld, Requiem for the AirPort base station: A testament to everything Apple was and isn’t anymore. The subhead for the post is, "Apple just doesn't think this way anymore." While it wasn't the story that I was originally looking for, it does capture a great deal of what's been going through my mind following the EOL decision on the Apple Airport. These days, we're supposed to believe that thinking differently means a different color enclosure on iPhone design or an edge-to-edge display where unusable active screen space is, well, useful.

Over the years, AirPort evolved into a full wireless solution that worked with any and all devices, but the ease-of-use Apple revolutionized with the original AirPort never went away. From the remarkable Airport Express to the ingenious Time Capsule, Apple’s wireless products were always designed with the consumer in mind. It took a complicated system and made it easy, a mantra that Apple has gotten further and further away from as it has grown.

In many ways, Apple's Airport was just a router, but like so many other Apple innovations, it was filled with potential that the current Apple business has simply abandoned. Take the whole wireless "mesh" devices. Long before you had these systems, you had Apple Airport Express wireless devices that could either extend your existing network or function as a compact wireless router for up to 10 devices. From the wifi extension perspective, these devices also included a USB connector so that you could connect a printer and an audio port so that you could connect music devices for a multi-room, wireless audio system. While it had a few issues here and there, it was an incredible system on the whole.

And that whole piece was built around Airplay, another awesome Apple feature -- until it wasn't. Eventually, Airplay got so bad, we just quit trying to use it. Theoretically, there are rumors of Airplay2, but I expect that to go the way of Apple TV and Siri, interesting ideas that the current Apple has transformed into technology flops.

But, back to the Apple Airport -- here's another reason why I loved the Airport Express, it was great for traveling. While WiFi network availability has grown, in some places (like Japan), not all hotels have WiFi access. Additionally, some places that you travel to might impose limits on the number of devices you could use. In these environments, the Airport Express was great. You could simply plug it in, and you'd suddenly have your trusted WiFi network available throughout your hotel room. Plus, any of those handy needs-to-be-on-the-same-wifi-network features also worked.

But modern Apple isn't about this kind of functionality any longer. Sure, the cost to run the WiFi router group is probably a fraction of a percent of the hardware revenue of the iPhone business. Sure, there are more Apple buildings and more Apple employees around than there ever were. But today's Apple wants to repeat one aspect of Steve Jobs' approach -- eliminate and focus -- they just want to focus the money. Baby. Out. Baby. Out. Baby. Out. And now we have a nice tub full of dirty water than we can focus on.

As I've written before. I didn't abandon Apple so much as they abandoned me.