“Apple’s marketing effort as it pertains to Apple Music has been an abject failure,” Yoni Heisler writes for BGR.
“At the core, the problem with Apple Music is that Apple has done a horribly poor job of letting people know that a) it exists and b) what it does,” Heisler writes. “This is a completely new service from Apple, one that can potentially yield them a lot of money, and yet, they’ve done a surprisingly poor job of advertising it.”
“Now sure, Apple has thrown together some objectively cool ads, but the ads themselves don’t inform. They’re mostly a collection of cool scenes set to cool music. If you don’t already know what Apple Music is, the commercials serve no real purpose,” Heisler writes. “Ask some of your more non-tech oriented friends if they know what Apple Music is and odds are you’ll be greeted with a collective ‘no’. Even folks who may have seen Apple Music commercials or Apple Music billboards around town will likely view it as a complete mystery. There’s truly no excuse for this.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s tough to argue with the results. A month after the worldwide launch in over 100 countries, Apple Music had a mere – make that laughable – 11 million non-paying “subscribers” to a free trial.
As we wrote last month: Despite Cue’s claims of being “thrilled,” doesn’t 11 million seem a bit paltry for a free trial that launched in over 100 countries over a month ago? 11 million free trial users? That’s it? With more than 1/3rd of the trial period now gone? This might be a harder sell than most, including Apple (with their rumored goal of 100 million subscribers), initially thought.
We’d said it before and we’ll say it again:
Apple’s marketing hasn’t been the right since Steve Jobs left the planet.Steve Jobs held a three-hour meeting every Wednesday afternoon with his top agency, marketing and communications people to approve each new commercial, print ad, web ad, and billboard. Does Tim Cook? If he does, does he have anything close to Jobs’ sensibilities in this area? Judging from Apple’s marketing since Steve left the building, he does not. Therefore, Cook needs to find a marketing guru to take Steve’s place, conduct these Wednesday meetings, and hold his marketing peoples’ feet to the fire until he/she is extremely satisfied.
And as we followed up with in April 2014:
As Apple CEO, Steve Jobs focused on two things – product design and marketing. He was a genius at both. His talents cannot be replaced with one person. In fact, his talents in either discipline cannot be replaced by one person. Jony Ive and Phil Schiller without Jobs cannot be expected to perform as if Jobs was still working with them. [Hence Apple’s subsequent Marc Newson hire to be Jony Ive’s muse/sounding board. – MDN Editor, Nov. 7, 2014]
A team of people – talented people who actually get it and who are all on the same page – is an absolute necessity for Apple’s success, but it creates a problem: Jobs was a single filter. A unified mind. The founder. A group of people simply cannot replicate that. This is not to say that they cannot do great work (we believe Apple does, and will continue, to do great work) just that Apple is fundamentally affected by the loss of Steve Jobs and has to figure out a new way to work.
Obviously, Apple still hasn’t found the solution.
SEE ALSO:
Are 11 million Apple Music subscribers – during a free trial in over 100 countries – worth bragging about? – August 10, 2015
Apple Music has 11 million trial members, App Store has July record $1.7 billion – August 6, 2015
Why not use Siri in the sign up process?
“Hey John, I noticed you listen to iTunes fairly often. Have you thought about Apple Music? You get a free trial for three months. Would you like me to set that up for you?”
Having Siri become a self-initiating sales person on people’s own devices would be a terrible branding mistake.
That is a Googly thing to do.
Giga-Googly, Jobs would puke then throw it against the wall.
..then fire anyone who had anything to do with such an “idea.”
Riiiight… Where have I seen something like that before? Oh yeah! “Hey, it looks like you’re trying to type a letter but this app is so bloated and crammed with cryptic icons that I’d guess you have no idea how to even start. I’ll just sit down here in the corner and roll my eyes for a while.”
It’s also a Clippy thing to do. Everyone likes Clippy. He’s a talking paper clip.
Hey, the thing is, even though I have to agree with those who commented above on my suggestion, the average (maybe average over 40) person doesn’t know where to find Apple Music or what it offers. It’s radical enough to merit a radical in-your-face explanation.
Maybe…opening music fires up a video intro that says pay attention. I think Apple Music on the screen as it is now is paltry and ignorable.
Interesting idea to have Siri help.. ut I’m afraid the exchange might go like this.
Me: “Sounds great Siri, sign me up!
Siri: I’m sorry John. I don’t understand “sign me up”. Would you like me to look on the internet?
Me: No, i mean sign me up for Apple Music.
Siri: here’s what I found on the web for “Send me up for Apple Music”…and on and on…
Totally agree with that article. This is what Apple paid $3B for?
No, they also received the headphone business, which in another year will have paid back the $3B (assuming zero growth).
I don’t think 11 million is a failure either. Did any other service startup with 11 million or more? Oh look the answer is NO!
So I think this story is FUD. And I think it will take more time and some tweaking. But I say again, I don’t think it is anywhere near a failure.
The important number will be how many will stay with the service once the free trial period is over. How many of those 11 million will drop the service once they have to start paying?
“We’d said it before and we’ll say it again:
Apple’s marketing hasn’t been the right since Steve Jobs left the planet…”
hasn’t been right since the death of its brilliant founder.
No Cue er… No clue yet on how it’ll attract more subscribers.
This assumes that people WANT a streaming service, or want to burn through their free trial right off the bat.
I have not signed up for the Apple Music free trial because 1) I know that, no matter how good it is, I will not be paying when the trial ends, 2) I want to hold off on trying it until I COULD conceivably buy in at the end, and 3) I just don’t see the appeal of streaming music vs. music ownership.
You have to remember that music streaming is still a massive paradigm shift from the previous ownership model. I know I would rather own my music than be tied to a subscription service. I’m certain I’m not alone. But the fact that 11 million people jumped on board immediately is huge.
Also, that 11 million figure came out weeks ago, didn’t it? Do you honestly believe that it has stayed at that number since Apple tossed it around? Also, how many people tune into Beats 1? I think that’s a far more telling figure than how many signed up to a new streaming service right off the bat.
I think it does just come down to the appeal of subscription vs owned. Frankly I don’t have or want to spend the time pursuing Apple Music for new stuff when I have so much already and finding the true gems that would appeal to me is difficult task and the “reward” relatively minor for all the searching. Music isn’t quite the commodity it once was, even though we still love it.
With low denominator gutter trash music from “fartists” like Dr. Dre, Kanye West and Chris Brown, etc., it only makes it harder to separate sheer junk from the possible treasure too. Apple Music needs to customize more to the individual and offer a filter that would hide music considered “artistically offensive” and utter garbage marketed to the young, naive & beguiled set who don’t know any better and have been bamboozled into thinking it’s any good or actually even remotely music. IMHO.
Something wrong ?
Send for a Doctor.
– Oops, tried that already.
It’s not a failure of marketing. It’s a failure of marketing, price, and performance.
Don’t blame the marketing, blame the idea and even the concept. Why would I pay a monthly fee for something that I can download and pay a one time fee ($0.99) and have the song(s) forever? As for the ability to interact with a band, one can do that for free by he/she going directly to that singer’s web site or blog.
If someone wants a live DJ, interview, or radio show, one can go to anyone of the gazillion Internet radio stations and also get that for FREE as well.
Apple Music will become a glorified PING service that is doomed to fail and we won’t be talking about this in over a year or so.
Apple needs to stick with what it does best – computer hardware and software.
I continue to assert that:
Music is in beta. Like it or not, it’s a mess and Apple is still trying to figure it all out. The tentacular nature of iTunes doesn’t help at all. iTunes blows ‘The Rule of Five’ (of human comprehension) to hell, making it an entirely predictable failure. I’m sorry Apple still has not figured out how to make it sane again.
[Because ‘The Rule of Five’ has been buried under lots of other thingies of the same name, let me provide a definition here: It points out that average human beings are only capable of comprehending five things in their mind at any one time. Some people can only deal with three things. Some care able to deal with seven. Sometimes ‘The Rule of Five’ is called ‘The Rule of Five, Plus or Minus Two’. The ramification is that any created system should only require a user to comprehend five items within that system at any point in time. Going over five is likely to lead to system comprehension breakdown. This rule can be applied to art, driving a car, working with students, or working with a software applications such as iTunes.]
There was no problem with the sales model.
Just like the transition from albums to CDs produced a wave of profit as people repurchased much of their library, the transition to digital caused a similar wave. That wave is over.
In a moment of monumental stupidity, Apple bought a me too music service modeled on an idea cribbed from Real Networks and Microsoft- renting your music – by a marketer of shiteous headphones and defective Bluetooth speakers. Not only did they piss away almost $3 Billion, they hired the con-men and allowed them to completely fuck up iTunes on iOS beyond all recognition (FUBAR). They also imported a number of foreign deejays like no Americans could be found that knew anything about popular music- this despite the fact that most modern forms of music originated in the United States. What galactic stupidity. They then ordered bonuses for all those involved.
Apple Music sucks like a Dyson. The problem is that Dysons are intended to suck and Apple Music should not.
As a customer and a shareholder, my opinion is that there needs to be a house cleaning and “come to Jesus moment” at Apple. Apple has more money than they know what to do with and should’ve able to find all the competent talent necessary to fix this shit.
Maybe an ass kicker that knows media like Mel Karmazin needs to come in and turn things around after Eddie Cue is shown the door along with Dr Dre and hangers on.
Agree 100%. Jimmy Iovine is the walking embodiment of the Peter Principle and Music is a confusing mess that f-cks with my music.
I agree with the article..
Apple wakeup….!
Let people know what the new music service is..
And flood the merchants with applepay stickers… Give the service the exposure it desreves!
I have no idea whether Apple Music is a success or a failure. All I know is that Apple screwed up royally when they paid such an astronomically high price for Beats Music.
I try to listen to Beats 1 radio, and just can’t. At 61 I am simply not in their targeted demographic. I like the For You stuff, but the problems reported with various library mix ups have stalled my desire to go all-in. And that Eddie Cue dance? Some things just can’t be unforgotten.
I’ve said it repeatedly for several years now Apple Marketing and PR needs to improve.
Before people one star me, quickly in two seconds i believe you could think of famous old Apple Campaigns like 1984, Mac/PC guy, Think Different…. can you in the same speed name 3 famous recent Ad campaigns? Don’t think so.
Even if you could vaguely think of them do you believe they have the same ‘impact’ on the General Public as the old ones? Any of them have gone into the general consciousness (go ‘viral’ they call it now) like Mac PC guy, 1984? When Justin Long was in Die Hard audiences called him the ‘Mac Guy’.
Apple Hardware is A , Apple marketing which used to be equal to Apple Hardware is now c+ .
I imagine many people are in the same boat as me: I want to “own” the small library of music I truly enjoy, and am not interested in a streaming subscription.
I buy less than one album per month, so it makes more sense to just buy. If I want to hear a song once, I check it out for free on YouTube. If I like it enough I buy it for $0.99 on iTunes. When my favorite artists have new albums coming out, I have it preordered.
I have HATED radio ever since SouljaBoy was crammed painfully into my ears multiple times a day (I swore I would never listen to radio again and had had enough, and haven’t turned on radio ever since, literally).
Streaming is not for everyone. If anything it’s a niche market which I assume is largely made up of young people still discovering what kind of music they are into.
Google and watch “iPod-itunes commercial:HipHop” or “Apple iPod+iTunes ad-Dance (2003)” TV ads. Then watch the latest Apple Music ad. iPod+iTunes ads were pure excitement, fun, cool, irresistible. Trash this gloomy, sleepy, serious, boring stuff.
I wouldn’t consider it a failure. I know the true number is how many of those 11 million trial users are going to stick with the service but I think 11 million in general is a good start. Even if half of those end up paying after the trail that is good for a music service going into its third month of existence.
I agree that Spotify is better, has a simpler UI, and overall more pleasant to use, however; I think overtime the service will gain steam and improve. It’ll get subscribers but it’ll be gradually overtime.
800 million + accounts.
They are giving away 90 days of the service for free.
11 million have decided they would rather be taxed for their music instead of buying it.
That is an abject failure, heads should roll and that should start with Mr Cue- who has not got a clue.
Apparently there is no vision at Apple regarding media.
Agreed, only about 1.4% of users opted in for a FREE three month trial. That’s pathetic. They need to fire their internal advertising department and rehire the company that did their “I’m a Mac” ads, the last memorable marketing campaign I can recall.
It may be a marketing failure, I don’t know.
But I do know it’s a practical failure.
I’ve tried to use Apple Music and … I can’t. It just doesn’t work.
(Wow. I never thought I’d say that about an Apple product.)
Because of Apple Music’s impossibility combined with the iTunes store’s password issues, I’ve actually gone back to buying used CDs and ripping them into my library. And even that’s problematic because iTunes no longer lets me make playlists.
At this rate, I’ll soon be buying a CD player and a radio tuner.
I wish I was kidding.