Out of Scope Issue #161: Bumble fumbles and Apple crushes consumer sentiment
Plus: The Malibu’s sunset and the end of endless shrimp
Happy Monday! For this week’s new Monday edition of Out of Scope, we reflected on last week’s big advertising debacle. But first, stories from last week with some staying power...
📡ON OUR RADAR
Comcast unveils their solution to a hyper-fragmented streaming service landscape, and it looks an awful lot like cable. The company announced StreamSaver – which will bundle Peacock, Netflix, and Apple TV+ – less than a week after Disney and Warner Bros announced a comparable consolidation of Disney+, Hulu, and Max.
Google’s new “web search" option displays text-only results, harkening back to the simpler times of a search engine actually working. This is good news for smaller publications floundering amidst Google’s AI scramble, which has produced mixed results and depressed site traffic.
This month, General Motors announced it would halt production of its Chevy Malibu, effectively eliminating one of the last American-manufactured sedans from the market as consumers continue to prefer bigger and bigger cars.
💡ON OUR MINDS: Consumer Marketing, Celibacy, and Creatives, oh my!
Source: Cluffalo via X.com
With consumers’ attention spans wearing thin, brands continue to do just about anything to captivate eyeballs and inspire (social) engagement — but last week, Apple and Bumble managed to do so for all the wrong reasons.
Just weeks after debuting its brand refresh that sought to win over women exhausted by online dating, Bumble did a widely-panned fast-follow campaign with a series of billboards decrying celibacy as the answer to dating woes.
Meanwhile, Apple — the often indomitable force in consumer advertising — outraged the creative community with its ad “Crush!” that saw a hydraulic press crush creative materials into a singular iPad. Critics quickly took to X, including RomCom hero Hugh Grant, who called it “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.”
Ultimately, both Bumble and Apple made public apologies for the marketing missteps. While experimentation is expected as brands try to woo consumers, that both were conceptualized and produced by their in-house teams perhaps shows the need for greater collaboration and scrutiny by outside partners.
After all, we’re living in the post-Bud Light landscape where just one marketing misstep can sink stock prices and stakeholders’ confidence in leadership.
🥊QUICK HITS:
In case you missed these reads:
Live by the endless shrimp, die by the endless shrimp: Red Lobster abruptly shuttered dozens of restaurants last week and filed for bankruptcy this morning.
The Dublin to NYC Portal re-opened today after a brief shutdown, boldly asking once again if we as a society can have nice things.
Jacobin this week mourned the yesteryear of alt publications like the Village Voice, something difficult to replicate now with the dominance of the internet.
Thanks for reading,
HL
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This week’s newsletter is brought to you by the end of animatronic music at Chuck E. Cheese.