Was Uber’s Branding Done While Uber High?
madartlab.com
madartlab.com
https://people.mozilla.org/~faaborg/files/20090521-firefoxIc...
(Page 26)
> When investors, clients, or media visited the company, some scientists would be asked to run experiments on cool-looking machines or use liquid nitrogen to dramatic effect — even if it had nothing to do with their work, a former employee says.
> It was all to create an appearance of a hardworking lab, even though it distracted from the actual research that needed to be done, former employees said.
http://www.businessinsider.com/hampton-creek-ceo-complaints-...
It seemed like they were doing something truly revolutionary with the potential to drastically reduce human consumption of eggs. (This can only be a good thing for anyone with a concern for animal welfare.)
The article suggests their core product is just mayonnaise made with an already-commonplace vegan food additive. They outsourced the development of it, and don't even understand the science of how it works.
Is there a new generation of entrepreneurs who have realised their path to riches is to found a PR machine masquerading as a tech company?
...Yes.
I wouldnt call it "new" or a "generation" but rather there are always those who can get by with hype and no substance. Nothing new but the amount of people doing it goes through boom and bust cycles like everything else.
Call it snake oil? Probably, but at least a multi billion dollar brand can answer the question "Why does the swirl look like that?".
And only $1 million? That was _cheap_!
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesign...
I'd loved to have seen this presentation, and in particular a recording of the Pepsi exec's faces as they decide it's safer to go with the consensus of the group rather than to speak up.
Sometimes the agencies throw these dud concepts in there to push you to select one of the better concepts they spent more time on. Which makes you wonder what the other concepts were that didn't make it for the new Uber icon.
bduerst says it's typical. Are marketting professionals all high?
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/the-inside-story-behind-ubers-c...
Kalanick jumps the shark.
Translation: "I don't know anything about this, but I believe it is important, so I want it to be done right... and I somehow think I am the person to do that." This is why we all repair our own cars using hammers and pliers.
But in all seriousness, how do people even get away with shit like this?
It reminds me of an article posted here a month ago[0]. Some juicy quotes: [1].
I've read reports with analyses that were blatantly wrong from a statistic or technical perspective, I've had discussions about the value of 'meta keywords' and whatnot where google itself refuted their arguments. And the most 'effective' experts I found were only so because they'd do all sorts of shady things like set up blogs for link juice.
On the other hand, I have met plenty of people with deep knowledge of SEO and social media, but very few of them called themselves primarily experts in this area. Usually they'd be web developers/designers, or small creative studios, or just have some unsexy job description working for a big company.
The last page is particularly awful. Not only does it contain a glaring scientific error ("1 light year = 671 million miles per hour"), but it's completely meaningless from a branding perspective. I mean, what does "dimensionalize exponentially" even mean?
Still pretty amusing though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law in action.
https://medium.com/@localweb/forward-slash-the-story-of-how-...
Worth reading for the "Tri-Venn Diabrand"
Lately, it seems he's been brought aboard by BlackBerry and it's interesting how their instagram page shows the slow change from normal looking ads to just weird abstract black and white crap. [2]
1. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/in-blow-to-arnell-tropicana-drop...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YBtspm8j8M
It even has a wrinkled ethnic old man.
In other words, the new video shows that Uber executives lack the self-awareness to understand that they just made their company look like Walmart, Exxon-Mobile or Altria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdz5kCaCRFM
"It doesn't matter what I say
So long as I sing with inflection
That makes you feel I'll convey
Some inner truth or vast reflection
But I've said nothing so far
And I can keep it up for as long as it takes"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kpWkV7IBUw
"Get to the floor
And hear some words you should know
Like "DJ never let me go"
Or "Shots and then we'll lose control"
Or "baby, baby, baby, baby, baby"
How about one more last word like
"Hey girl, we've only got tonight"
Some things just go together like
Higher, desire, and fire
Higher, desire, and fire"
Why would they not want to do that? Those companies are huge and successful.
And at least Exxon and Wal-Mart have instantly recognizable, sensible-looking corporate logos.
Well, yes. I believe the CEO of Uber came out and said this a year or two ago. Once self-driving cars become a reality, that's basically what Uber is going to turn into. A fleet of autonomous vehicles that take you wherever you need to go, that won't cancel on you if a better fare pops up, and that will most likely not get into too many (or any) accidents. From a technology, efficiency, and public safety perspective...this seems like a better way to go.
I'm sure someone will make a ridesharing app for private owners of self driving cars to rent them out when they are not using them, though. The app maker would have to insure against damages, and the long term trend will be towards transportation as a service where you subscribe to a self driving car company and just get a car on demand rather than having one idle in your driveway, but some people will cling to private ownership and might use it.
Which will be neatly ironic - capitalism and market pricing destroying the basis of private ownership.
The main value that uber drivers bring to the table is not the brain that connects the engine to the driving wheel, it is that they use (and maintain) their own damned cars to do this lame pretense of a part time gig.
For this reason alone, and regardless of the technical feasibility, there will never be an Uber fleet of self driving cars. It's like saying a multilevel marketing company is going to start selling real products and will no longer rely on "get rich quick" schemes to reach out to customers. Even if they tried, the whole pyramid would implode under their feet faster than what any corporation could possible implement the change.
Ha, good luck with that.
https://medium.com/basic-income/self-driving-trucks-are-goin...
I'm in healthcare tech, and a lot of my low income and middle class patients across the US are truck drivers to support themselves and their families. These people often don't even have internet access or smartphones. I have no idea what these people are going to be able to do for work when this change happens. Most likely they will all apply for and go on disability as that more and more seems to be becoming the new welfare stopgap in the US.
It would make for a pretty interesting survey. I wonder what would happen if drivers didn't know and suddenly found out. Guessing many would stay the course because they need the income.
If I were a professional driver of any kind, I would be looking hard at career alternatives in the medium term.
That depends on the policy configured by whoever controls the fleet.
I am not nostalgic. I like it better this way.
No, the regulations should not exist. We could have had Uber and more competitors sooner if not for taking calculated legal risk against archaic institutions of regulation surrounding everything today. Almost all progress is a constant battle not against innovation or creativity but against legal traps keeping you from thinking outside the box.
I asked one in BC, Canada recently, and found out they have to take monthly $100/day taxi lease, minimum 1 month and then make that money + more back with whatever hours they can get. I'm guessing the drivers are 'independent contractors' too.
There's a labour market for that.
> lack of labour rights,
That's for the government to deal with.
> surge pricing,
Surge pricing is awesome: at least you can still get a cab if you are willing to pay. As opposed to no cab at any price.
> lack of disabled accommodations,
Yeah, that's annoying for those in need. I propose giving disabled people more money, so they can then vote with their newly enlarged wallets. (And perhaps there's something more efficient for them than enticing taxi drivers.)
> no guarantee of service in all areas,
Why should city dwellers subsidise those yokels?
> lack of fare caps,
As long as the fare structure is known before I get into the cab, no problem.
> no concessionary travel,
Just give poor people more money. No need for concessions. (I've never seen any regulated taxi with concession fares. Only in public transport.)
> having to use a smartphone to pay,
> unaccredited and unknowledgeable drivers,
Not less knowledgeable than most `normal' cabbies, as far as I can tell. But, depends on the area. Eg London has some pretty knowledgeable cabbies.
> generic unmarked vehicles, etc.?
Who cares? You can pay more for an UberBlack, if you want to have a non-generic car.
>What is superior about purely paid drivers?
Low cost of transportation for consumers. No driver is entitled to a job. The efficient movement of goods and people are far more important than preserving jobs from being destroyed by technology that enhances the well-being of society.
That already happens today, in our "tightly regulated" market. Wonder drugs or miracle cures or instant diets or self help books claim to fix everything and do nothing. Drop regulation and it gets worse. Consumers are simply bad at organizing information about businesses, though I would concede that might be partially due to an expectation that "the government will take care of it".
Other things - environmental pollution / destruction (and other secondary costs of business), exploitative employment practices (particularly exploiting the poor and uneducated), using economies of scale to drive out competition, rent seeking, collusion, asset hoarding, and fraud all occur in a natural market and to varying degrees government involvement helps abate some - certainly not all, and certainly not perfectly - these anti-consumer effects of business.
You can look at almost any industry and point at gratuitous and stifling regulation, very often used as shut door tactics by wealthy market players who use force of law to stop competition, because playing in markets usually keeps you honest. Just because Uber is innovative does not exonerate them from how they are playing legal hardball just as bad as many of the companies that preceded them, and if given the opportunity would not erect the same walls to competition their fore-bearers put up. Besides the concerns about workers rights for their drivers, they are actively lobbying cities around the globe to both reduce regulation for themselves and increase it for Lyft or other possible competitors.
Underwriters' Laboratories, Consumer Reports, Amazon Reviews, and Yelp are all good examples of effective, though imperfect, market regulation. Producers have no interest in harming their consumers and consumers have no interest in dealing with producers who will harm them. Everyone has an incentive to find ways to ensure mutually beneficial trade. However, when regulatory regimes are monopolized, a new set of incentives emerge which often have nothing to do with consumer safety. Worst of all, consumers and producers have no means to express their dissatisfaction and exit the regime. This is inherently different from companies like Yelp who must fight on a daily basis to continue delivering value to their customers.
Go walk down the main street of any town in the US and realize how few people are actually educated, or rational, or functional. It is absolutely a product of both culture and the state as it exists that most normal people are raised to become these... zombies? But they are not going to use rational means to pursue products, which is why we have this nanny state consumer production giant looming over everything.
But like I said, we cannot just dissolve those overabundant regulations and growth stifling control with people as stupid as they are. That is just a recipe for pandemic exploitation to degrees even greater than what our current advertising industry pumps out. Just look at how often you hear a story of someone or their kid spending a months worth of wages on some shitty Android game because they were raised to be completely oblivious to obvious swindling.
If we could raise a generation and/or a nation of smart, rational, informed consumers, we could easily replace all the certification and licensing that slows innovation to a crawl with self regulation. Until then we are stuck in a world where people buy self-help books, booze, and Viagra instead of paying off their credit cards.
If you mean by 'interest' what I think you do, they have an interest only in making money. They have no more interest in NOT harming their consumers than they do in harming their consumers -- and producers of inherently harmful products (cigarettes being the obvious incontestable example) in fact do have an interest in harming their users. But there are PLENTY of producers who have demonstrated an enthusiasm to harming their users, if it sells product.
In fact, this very article had an early comment[1] comparing Uber's logo re-design to AirBnB's paperclip thingy[2]. That comment is now deleted. No way to tell if it was self-deleted or mod deleted, but either way it seems someone wasn't comfortable having that on here, for whatever reason.
A single comment sounds like poor evidence to me.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2820615
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813956
Ever since AirBnB became the most valuable company in YC's portfolio, there has been a remarkable groupthink on HN where everything they do is good and criticism basically vanishes. Yet criticism of a non-YC company like Uber gets upvoted and creates a big dogpile, even when it could be equally applied to both companies.
Still, from the top 10 of past year:
"Why Airbnb is dead to me" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10291070)
"The two faces of Airbnb" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10487447)
"AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10090119)
"Living and Dying on Airbnb" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10531229)
And many of the others in the top are not really about AirBNB itself, just of related topics. I don't see much praise.
I didn't quite understand it at first. I looked at the NY Uber approved vechicles, and threw up my hands.
I now get it. Oh, and it's not about car safety.
People with private drivers get driven in expensive cars.
> "We leave no bit or atom unturned, to create industries that serve people, and not the other way around."
I thought I heard wrong, I had to rewind it.
This whole rebranding proposal must have seemed and felt so incredibly different to the Uber executives within the context of their conference rooms.
> We emailed Airbnb spokesman Christopher Nulty to ask whether the library ad was "real." He responded by email, "as opposed to a fake one :)"
> A follow up email, explaining that we were in fact seeking confirmation as to whether the ads are actually from Airbnb received the following response: "Are you seriously writing on this?"
> Nulty did not respond to another follow up email.
I'm actually AMAZED their PR dude has not been fired over his juvenile and unprofessional response to the reporter. You had ONE job!!
http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/10/21/passive-aggress...
"Okay ... seriously, what the f--- was that all about?"
'Don't worry about it, their money is just as green as anyone else's. Just don't forget about the gig across town tomorrow.'
"Got it. But I really need to take a shower now."
It's more than that. It's anti-aesthetical postmodernist anti-intellectualism wrapped up into into a single construct of pure and utter nonsense. This is what happens when herd mentality really takes off at a company. You produce work in a vacuum.
Too many yes-men and everyone starts believing their own bullshit.
I see what you did there!
Thank you iStock photo.
http://www.istockphoto.com/video/aerial-bangkok-riverside-do...
Also - complete marketing wank.
The act of magic is to pay very very close attention to the little details that others miss, in order to produce illusions. For a brand, this is done largely at the executive / investor level. A few people create a belief system that the whole company can buy into.
Part of this belief system is the way the company is designed. The "content-free" dubstep video is an excellent demonstration of how the high-level concepts conjured up by the branding team slowly wind their way through the company.
Every company is in a constant battle for relevance in the hearts and minds of the people that work for it and the people that patronize it. If you don't keep fighting it, then people slowly stop caring and before you know it, you've got Uber drivers beating up their riders. That stuff is going to happen anyway, but again, it's the small details that matter, such as how the company responds to it.
I didn't think the video was particularly profound, but it did remind me of what makes Uber such a great idea and a great company. Little details like the ones I saw in the design video would subtly remind me of the magic that Uber is trying to conjure every time I used the app.
01. The Bit At the center of our app icons is the Bit—the symbol of our technology.
02. Product shape Surrounding the Bit is a shape that denotes the product and represents the atoms moved by our technology. For the rider app, this shape is a circle.
03. Grid line To convey the rider story of a trip in progress or the arrival at a destination, a single line connects the Bit with the shape around it.
04. Patterns and colors Behind the other components is a canvas of color and pattern, another representation of the physical world that symbolizes the cities and people we serve.
EDIT: The leading zeros in the numbered list above were featured on the site. What significance could that hold?
Look at any good logo[1] and it's self explanatory.
[1]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Fe...
The 'Pepsi gravitational field' doc is pretty out there, but it seems to at least include rationales behind their process. Uber's just feels like they made the logo and then tried to connect it to some broader philosophical reasoning which just screamed pretension.
As a San Francisco company they should fit right in at the smuggiest city in the country:
http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104282/smuggy-san-francisco-to...
If you thought Yahoo’s weekend charrette between CEO
Marissa Meyer and her design team was scary, try an
extended process of more than a year of a non-
designer CEO micro-managing the process.
I can hear the Uber voiceover woman saying: "Do you like our owl?"
Google re-branded themseleve just last year (before the Alphabet switch over). People hated the new typeface etc, etc. but that doesn't stop anyone from using Gmail or Google search.
Point being, when you get to a certain size it really don't matter if you use comic san for your corporate type face. That's not going to change the public perception of you the company.
All the brand work, rebranding etc etc are just a way to make the people within the company feel good about themselves.
Despite the dislike, I think this brand website is extremely slick and quite inspirational. Not bad for Wordpress. The video isn't bad either, as far as these things go. I still do not buy into the brand though.
To be pedantic at the level the madartlab.com folks seem to be going after, the video doesn't state that all atoms were born 13.8 billion years ago. It says "the atom" was born 13.8 billion years ago. This is correct.
http://patrickgrant.com/BBTL.htm
It took 300,000 years for conditions to get the point where neutral atoms could form. That's still about 13.8 billion years ago to a reasonable margin of error. It's entirely correct to say that "the atom" was born then. This is the point in time from which the cosmic microwave background dates from, so it's arguably our view of the Big Bang.
We'll see about the rest of the video now.
I personally don't like the work too much but I get why they had to rebrand. The biggest challenge I see is the disconnect between what their internal culture appears to be to us techies (extremely cutthroat, willing to bend rules to sabotage competitors) vs. the brand they present to the world (we love kittens, we move cities).
Noticed the same opinion from others elsewhere, including Twitter.
It's like how everyone thought that Carl Lewis would forever hold the 100M dash record and then Usain Bolt comes in and obliterates it.
Problem is, it seems a little disingenuous
I love kittens, but jesus... that's an embarrassingly egregious appeal to das cute!
Overall, this is epic comedy. 5 stars, would recommend!
"Sorry: because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here."
Hopefully someone was kind enough to mirror this before Uber silently retracted it.
But this was obvious from day one, and reiterated by all their messages. When the tech is ready, humans will be expelled from the loop.
It is open information, and market seems to be OK with it. Ergo: most jobs will be history soon (also well-known obvious observation). Those who adjust first will reap the rewards.
The whole bit-and-atom routine may be a little cheesy if you are a marketing skeptic, but it's fairly reasonable by Corporate Marketing Speak standards.
That's not even remotely true.
Cheesy? How about nonsensical and a sick laugh at their ignorant customers?