Apple’s Crushing Error, Aggressive Algorithms & How To Sift
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #202 ❤️
This week we’re dissecting the biggest marketing fail Apple have ever faced, looking at how TikTok will be fighting back in the face of their US ban and learning about how the UK are looking to toughen up the rules on pushing content to kids online.
Plus, we introduce the four-step method to spotting fake news, and bring you some either comforting or concerning news about using your brain at work, depending on your job…
Let’s get into it.
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#1 - Apple’s Crushing Failure
Excuse the pun, but we’re still reeling from Apple’s biggest mess up in years, if not ever.
Apple’s latest iPad ad, in which a load of lovely creative tools – including a retro gaming machine, musical instruments, paint, and, weirdly a cute little cartoon head – are crushed by an industrial press has literally horrified consumers across the globe.
The backlash was so instant and intense that Apple have issued an apology, planned to cut planned ad times, and probably unleashed a world of pain on whoever came up with it.
While the use of the industrial press seems to be meant to highlight that this is the slimmest iPad yet, and can hold all of this creativity, what people tool from it was this – this little metal and glass slab is here to replace all analogue creativity. Watch us, quite literally destroy, everything you love – and then buy our product.
Opinion pieces have sprung up by the dozen, probably more than the number of iPads that will have been sold since the ad went out. The Verge alone has three out of five of their top stories on the subject the day after the ad went live, none of which are positive.
One piece compared this ad with their iconic 1984 ad, which highlighted that Apple is for those creative people that want to step out of the box and smash conformity, and this newest ad goes against their whole ideology of aligning themselves with the creatives – the people who use their devices to make art rather than excel spreadsheets.
Many people read the ad as a metaphor for AI replacing all human creativity, and others have lambasted it as an “embarrassingly narrow view of technology” – how self-centred do you have to be to imagine that the only good technology is the newest kind.
We think their error is more simple than philosophical – they put tactics before strategy.
Someone in an agency somewhere thought it would be cool to use a giant hydraulic press that smashes things in an ad, and overlooked Apple’s core value of “creating” things rather than destroying things.
Sure, it’s a cool idea, but it’s absolutely one million percent the WRONG idea for this brand at this time. And boy did they learn that the hard and fast way.
#2 – TikTok Fights Back
Americans do not despair (at least not about your apps), TikTok are not going to go down without a fight.
They’re claiming that selling the app to a US company would be impossible, which means they’ll have no choice but to be banned in the US, making the decision unconstitutional because it infringes on free speech.
Their lawsuit states that the “my way or the highway” attitude taken by congress is tantamount to subjecting a “single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban” which will “bar every American from participating in a unique online community with more than 1 billion people worldwide”.
But for many people, the potential of a ban has taken some of the shine off it anyway, and although the algorithm may not be replaceable, short-form video probably will be.
Commentators agree that TikTok is the “defining standard of success in the realm of short-form video”, and has defined a need that will stand the test of time. While TikTok itself might disappear, it’s legacy is a “need for short-form video” – potentially due to our now completely short-circuited attention spans – and that vacuum will be filled by something else.
We’ll be on the edge of our seats to find out what comes next in the fight for TikTok’s life, but, as we said last week, if your income depends on it, start trying out Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts asap…
Ofcom, our friendly neighborhood media regulator in the UK, are taking on tech giants and demanding that they “tame toxic algorithms” to protect children from being recommended harmful content.
They have proposed over 40 requirements for tech companies under their Online Safety Act, including robust age-checks and content moderation to try and protect minors online.
Ofcom exec Melanie Dawes says that their codes “firmly place the responsibility for keeping children safer on tech firms” stating that they will need to “tame aggressive algorithms that push harmful content to children in their personalized feeds”.
TikTok have already took some action to “tame” their naughty algorithm. As we covered a few weeks ago, they’ve limited certain content from the For You Feed, like “extreme fitness” content, “overgeneralized mental health information” or anything overly sexual.
Dawes wants age-checks to be introduced so that children can get an experience that’s right for their age, and the responsibility will be on the big social media names to create that experience for them, rather than having one experience for all users and letting minors and families sort it out for themselves.
And if they can’t provide that, Ofcom say that it will be their responsibility to prevent children from accessing the entire site or app.
If they don’t, Ofcom will be allowed to fine them up to £18 million, or 10% of their global revenue. Ouch…
#4 - Introducing Sift
Misinformation is so rampant on social media, and with AI coming on in leaps and bounds it’s only going to get harder to tell what is real and what isn’t. Great timing, what with the US election coming up and everything…
Enter “Sift”.
The “Sift” strategy is a technique pioneered by digital literacy experts to spot fake news online, and obviously, it’s an acronym. So..
1. Stop.
Although social media drives urgency, research has found that relying on “gut” reactions is more likely to lead you astray than if you stop and think. So don’t share, don’t comment, just stop and take a minute.
2. Investigate the source.
Where did it come from? Your friend shared it, sure, but where did they get it? If the source of the fact is a media outlet – are they a respected one? If it’s an individual, what subject expertise do they have? What financial, political or personal biases may be at play? And if it’s an organization, what is their purpose?
The most important question to ask when you’ve found all this out, is would you trust their expertise in this subject if they were saying something you didn’t agree with…
3. Find better coverage
If the last step leads you to question the source credibility, get digging. What does a reputable news outlet have to say about the same thing? How? Just google it.
There’s a Google Fact Check Engine too, and if it’s an image that’s concerning you then a reverse image search will show you where else it’s appeared online.
4. Trace the claim back to it’s original context.
You can probably double whammy this with number 3, at least the same methods in the previous step will probably lead you to the original source. The idea here is to see if anything was taken out of context, for example something someone said in an interview that has been twisted to end up meaning something else.
These four steps can be the difference not only between believing fake news, but by spreading it further and giving it even more power.
Of course, some people can’t be helped, but if the people with the brain power to undertake these four steps do so we can limit the spread of dangerous content.
#5 - Is Your Job Saving You From Dementia?
Think about a day in your job where everything is going a bit crazy, you’re getting emails pinging through ten to the dozen, putting out fires and trying to figure out how to get that deck right for your boss or make that excel do what you need it to do.
Sometimes all that mental stress and brain power can get a bit much, but what if we told you it could be saving you from dementia later in life?
New research has shown that people in routine and repetitive jobs have a 31% higher risk of disease in later life, and a huge 66% higher risk of mild cognitive problems.
A study of over 7,000 participants across 305 different occupations in Norway showed that those who held the least mentally demanding jobs were at higher risk, with the cognitive complexity of the jobs involved being judged on the amount of routine manual and mental work along with the degree of analytical and interpersonal tasks involved in the role.
This little fact may just make you appreciate the mind-boggling task of trying to give that especially demanding client the solution they’re looking for, having to maneuver in meetings to try and get everybody on the same page, or just trying to tame those tricky little cells in your excel spreadsheet.
On the other hand, if your job is boring the life out of you and you think surely this can’t be good for me? Well, you’re right.
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
Controversial Campaigns
We look a list, and this weeks Apple marketing disaster inspired us to find some more.
This is the list of the most controversial ad campaigns, including one suggesting that Dettol is the best way to clean a crime scene after literally murdering someone, to advertising your alcohol as the best one for making Molotov cocktails during the BLM protests.
Read the room guys, please.
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