Who doesn't know the legendary Irish rock band, U2? Aside from their many musical accolades, the band is also known for their acts of charities across the globe. Combating issues in poverty, disease, and social injustice. The band is as big as any band could have hoped to ever be. They probably have a higher approval rating than any United States president past or present.
Unfortunately, I am not here to write about their amazing successes (what's the fun in that?). The latest headline the band made in recent memories is about the Social Media disaster following their recent album release.
In September 2014, the band—in partnership with tech and music giant, Apple—released its 19th album to the masses. The campaign coincides with the release of Apple's latest gadget, the iPhone 6. This marks the second time the two brands partnered up in an advertising campaign (the first being the iconic "Silhouette" campaign to promote the iPod).
While the "Silhouette" campaign goes down the history book as one of the most iconic (not to mention profitable) campaign, Apple and U2's second partnership failed to capture any of the intended attention.
Still haven't found what I'm looking for (the How to Delete instruction!)
The album, called Songs of Innocence, was being launched via iCloud. For most people who opt to automatically sync their iTunes library with their iCloud, this means that the album would be sitting pretty on their playlist without their consent.
Clearly the well intended "gift" does not sit right with the audience
The sudden appearance of the album's 11 songs was viewed by many as an aggressive marketing assault. The Twitterverse quickly blew up with complaints and gripes. Some even goes as far as saying "I'd rather have food poisoning on Christmas". What's even more frustrating to these people (including me), is the fact that there are no clear way to delete the album from their iTunes library. I had to resort to independent online forums in my effort to dump the album.
The backlash was so bad that Apple needed to issue a dedicated page on its site the very next week, to help people delete the unwanted "virus" off of their phones. Furthermore, both U2 and Apple are being seen as having a negative impact on the music industry as a whole. As reported by The Telegraph, Paul Quirk, chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) said: "... giving away hundreds of millions of albums simply devalues music and runs the risk of alienatingthe 60pc of the population who aren't iTunes customers"
To no one's surprise, the album only sold less than 7,000 copies, with fewer than 60 albums sold on the high street. To say that Songs of Innocence had performed horribly is an understatement.
"Beautiful Day" to learn from our mistakes
The band's frontman, Bono, apologized to a fan during a Q&A session held over Facebook. Despite that, he refused to issue an apology to the larger public stating that it remains "..one of the proudest moments in U2 history". He admitted he was unaware of the automatic download method their album was launched on.
Personally, I don't need a formal apology from anyone. At the heart of it, the campaign was a well meaning gift U2 and Apple thought to offer their loyal fans. I can just picture a brand manager over at Apple (who shelled out a cool $100 Million for the campaign) pitching the idea, probably saying "who doesn't like free stuff??". And being a creative who's job is to constantly suggest wild ideas in order to sell products, I know for a fact that the aforementioned line is a) true for the most part, and b) works almost 99% of the time in harnessing loyal customers.
The only missing cog is the "offering" part. It would have been nice if they had frame the whole marketing effort as a genuine offering where people can decide for themselves whether they want the album or not. Music is universal, but music genre is not—Not everyone is a U2 fan. Could the incident be avoided? Of course. Like I've stated before, providing your audience with option to receive a free album would probably agrees more with the general public. People loves free stuff, they just don't want free stuff shoved down their throats.
Given the option, this would most likely be the general public's reaction towards U2's Songs of Innocence
Had the campaign still within its ideation phase, the Marketing managers would be the ones responsible to clean up this mess (read: not letting it see the light of day. Ever.) They should have had the common sense of at least coming up with a contingency plan, which includes the "how to delete" instructions. But after the campaign had launched, the responsibility shifts over to Apple and U2's PR agencies. They would be the most equipped in handling public meltdowns, especially in this magnitude. Would they be able to fix the problem entirely and improve the album's sales? Maybe not. But they could've figured out how to tame the fire a lot sooner.
