How Apple’s U2 Debacle Could Have Been Prevented

Recently, Apple reintroduced its Music app for iOS. Once, music was a propellant to explosive growth for the company as iPods created a huge market and became a household name. At the height of the growth, Apple had used U2 to promote a branded iPod (pre-loaded with a new U2 album at that time) and continued to ride the wave of growth for the iPod as well as the iTunes store. But Apple themselves unseated the iPod with the iPhone, and a horde of static and streaming music services (including Apple’s recently purchased Beats Music) rose up. During the recent Apple Keynote, they announced with glee that they were pre-loading every iOS users library with the latest U2 album. Those viewing the presentation rushed to their phone to find the album already there. Surprise! Better yet, it was apparently not deletable.

Twitter exploded with all the rage that should rightfully accompany a gift. The upset registered as a change in sentiment about the golden, Apple brand.

Conceptually, it was a good idea. Apple was likely seeking a way to reignite interest in their position in the music category. Few bands have the shared appeal, Q score — or at the least, aren’t hated — on a global level like U2. The gesture of Apple, a brand that rarely discounts its products, giving users this gift would certainly get attention. Especially in the music category where they have had a strangle hold on album and single-track sales since the early 2000’s. And the tactic worked. Apple likely wanted to remind users to open the Music app on their device. AND THEY DID. Users like me opened that app, which happened to be the first time I had every opened it on my phone.

Upon opening the app, in which Apple could have done a number of additional steps to re-ignite interest, they were greeted with the same default screen, tapped artists (designed to actually be Bono, since their initial partnership) and found the U2 album already loaded. Instead of exploring the app further, they apparently went to social media to make jokes or complain. I had an immediate reaction as well. Why take this singular path on a bet that people will happily accept U2? The iPod, iTunes brands — and the Apple brand — are built on self-expression, uniqueness, thinking different. Why then assume you could take one of the last performing true Super Bowl acts and please an audience you trained to follow the long tail of music? Why focus on U2, the splashiest past partner of the iPod era, when Apple also has one of the most iconic ad campaigns, which they could have used to re-launch the app? Even if only in that keynote.

If the immediate gimmick to get users to open the app worked, did it impact behavior? Did it increase prolonged use of Music or paid downloads albums from iTunes? The former, I doubt. As for the latter, the Wall Street Journal estimates Apple’s most recent revenues from music are down 13–14%.

Imagine this. Instead of Mr. Cook trotting Bono out on the stage to give away this specific album, they think about the reasons the users have gone to other services. Because streaming has made users forget that Apple and iTunes made music discovery possible at its current scale. We use Spotify to jump from track to track (more on that topic soon) and have finally been convinced that the physical record collection is no longer necessary.

What if, at that same Keynote. During that same segment. I’ll even grant you an appearance by Bono, but it would’ve been more effective to offer a collection of fringe artists spanning genre and interests. What if then, they gifted us not a specific album, but ANY album. A music only credit for the iTunes store with which a user could go back into exploration mode, shop for something they would value as a gift and be brought back into at least one more tap on the Music app?

This gesture would ring true to the brand heritage, the current brand, and even help them reclaim their authority in music as groundwork for a re-launched Beats Music. I suspect they were more focused on the symptom (users aren’t opening the Music app as much anymore) than they were on the real cause (people don’t value the app because they have forgotten the benefits of owned music). Gifting them a choice would have gone a long way to address that.