“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