It took five seconds for Apple to distribute a free music album to its 500 million customers, but also to create one of the biggest scandals in its history.
In 46 years of existence, Apple has been talked about both for its innovations and for the few scandals that broke out in Cupertino. We will remember in particular the “bendgate” of the iPhone 6, unable to resist the back pockets of jeans, or the butterfly keyboard, unreliable on some MacBooks. Each time, the Apple had to face the discontent of its customers and legal proceedings which sometimes cost it several hundred million euros.
One of these scandals will have particularly splashed Apple because of the awkwardness of the thinking heads of the company. It all starts with a very good intention: to offer all Apple customers the brand new album by Irish rock band U2, Songs of Innocence. But customers didn’t take kindly to Apple’s handling of things.
It all started on September 9, 2014, during the keynote presentation of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Long-awaited, this conference seems to end under the best auspices when Tim Cook introduces his latest novelty, emphasizing the importance of “music in Apple’s DNA”. After the iPod and iTunes, Apple proved that it could revolutionize the music industry and that it was ready to go even further in this direction. It thus announces that it has signed an exclusive agreement with U2 to distribute the group’s new album to all Apple customers, free of charge.
A genius marketing move, but which will have a price. To revitalize an iTunes in decline and instead of asking the group to create an album exclusive to the platform, Apple would have paid more than 100 million dollars, according to the New York Times. At the conclusion of the show, Tim Cook and lead singer Bono would touch each other’s index fingers at the exact moment that all customers would receive the free album in their iTunes library. Problem: what seemed to start from a good intention will finally turn out to be a real economic and publicity disaster for Apple.
An album that interferes in private life
Neither one nor two, all customers get the album on their appled device without Apple asking their permission or giving them the opportunity to decline the offer. What they feared was finally going to come true. All will receive the free album in their library without being given a choice. Worse still, it will be completely impossible for them to remove “Songs of Innocence” from their library! Nonsense for customers, who do not hesitate to express their dissatisfaction on social networks: “I caught a new virus called ‘U2’ on my iPhone!”.
Apple’s partnership with U2 is supposed to end on October 13, when the album should no longer appear in users’ libraries. In the meantime, users consider this promotional action “worse than spam”, and U2 has become the “most hated music group in the United States”.
The story between Apple and U2 had begun a few years earlier, when Steve Jobs and the Irish group had concluded an agreement to produce four special editions of the iPod in the colors of the group. See the iPhone Product (RED) models? Well, the association was created by Bono to raise money against the AIDS virus in African countries. Losing ground with the younger generation, U2 hoped that offering this new album to Apple customers would give them a resurgence in popularity. For its part, this partnership could have allowed Tim Cook to relaunch iTunes in the face of a sharp increase in Spotify on the market.
Installed by default and cannot be removed
But when it comes out, the iPhone 6 has a basic storage of 16 GB. iTunes is not able to save the songs in the cloud, they settle immediately in the storage of the phone. Users then pay attention to the albums they download, and the compulsory installation of “Songs of Innocence” on iPhone is frowned upon by customers.
Following this outcry, Apple decided in the days following this announcement to backtrack. An online toolwhich is no longer available today, is also published on the Apple site a week later to allow customers to remove the album from their library.
We do not know today how much this fiasco will have cost Tim Cook and his band. To the approximately 100 million dollars necessary to win the exclusivity of the album, Apple had to subsequently spend crazy sums to face the lawsuits launched by customers and consumer associations. One thing is certain: the intention was laudable, but the implementation rather calamitous.
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