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Was Uber’s Branding Done While Uber High?
- nilkn 11y agoI'm reminded of the Pepsi gravitational field: https://people.mozilla.org/~faaborg/files/20090521-firefoxIconQA/pepsi_gravitational_field.pdf https://people.mozilla.org/~faaborg/files/20090521-firefoxIc... (Page 26)
- davidw 11y agoWow, that is epic. I'm not sure what the hell to make of it, but it kind of reads like one of those net.kook manifestos about how to create a perpetual motion machine or something like that. But more polished.
- randycupertino 11y agoIt reminds me of something food startup Hampton Creek did when VCs and reporters came to visit- they would have their scientists fire up dry ice machines and do fake "cool looking experiments" for no purpose other than to look impressive: > 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-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/hampton-creek-ceo-complaints-...
- J-dawg 11y agoUgh, that article is so sad. I really wanted to believe the hype about Hampton Creek. 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?
- manigandham 11y ago> 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.
- sciguy77 11y agoThis can't be real... right? God the advertising industry is so much worse than I thought.
- samstave 11y agoSeriously... is this a real design document?
- sciguy77 11y agoI did a quick google and it appears so. :/
- ryan-allen 11y agoI think you'll find that the NeXT logo was designed in a similar fashion, and that many high end brands get this kind of input into their logos and branding. 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_!
- samstave 11y agoJust give me the multi-million dollar logo contract so I may give you the snake-oil design document which justifies my multi-million dollar fee for the snake-oil design document!
- zanny 11y agoI guess its hard to deal with that, at the end of the day, you are just trying to exploit subconscious survival instincts to usurp the rational mind to get people buy things they do not want to buy.
- timdeneau 11y agoIt must be satire… but even the chance that it’s real is disturbing.
- 11y ago
- waterlesscloud 11y agoWow. 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.
- ceejayoz 11y agoThis is basically the modern version of The Emperor's New Clothes.
- bduerst 11y agoHah, that's pretty mild compared to some of the things I've seen come back from creative agencies. 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.
- username223 11y agoIt's past time to stop calling them "creative agencies." They're "advertisers," "hucksters," or "paid liars," and asking us to call them "creative" was pretty creative.
- bduerst 11y agoEven if I had said "Hucksters" then you would have most likely thought of something other than a creative agency. I could probably shave with the amount of edge you've got there.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoTo be honest, lying on that level advertisers do requires quite a lot of creativity sometimes. So does placating conscience.
- vidanay 11y agoThat made my brain hurt.
- jrochkind1 11y agoOh man, I've never seen that before. I think the folks at that agency were DEFINITELY high when they came up with that report. bduerst says it's typical. Are marketting professionals all high?
- shermablanca 11y agoExcept that it wasn't an agency at all. Kalanick headed the redesign himself, despite admitting that he didn't even know what kearning was when he started. From wired: >>> Most CEOs hire experts—branding agencies that specialize in translating corporate values into fonts and colors—or tap an in-house team. Not Kalanick. For the past three years, he’s worked alongside Uber design director Shalin Amin and a dozen or so others, hammering out ideas from a stuffy space they call the War Room. Along the way, he studied up on concepts ranging from kerning to color palettes. “I didn’t know any of this stuff,” says Kalanick. “I just knew it was important, and so I wanted it to be good.” http://www.wired.com/2016/02/the-inside-story-behind-ubers-colorful-redesign/ http://www.wired.com/2016/02/the-inside-story-behind-ubers-c...
- outside1234 11y agotl;dr Kalanick jumps the shark.
- kzhahou 11y agoSelf-jumping shark
- username223 11y ago> “I didn’t know any of this stuff,” says Kalanick. “I just knew it was important, and so I wanted it to be good.” 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.
- jrochkind1 11y agoI was referring the pepsi one in the comment I was replying to!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- archimedespi 11y agoIt's like corporate timecube :) But in all seriousness, how do people even get away with shit like this?
- TeMPOraL 11y agoThis is absolutely a higher level of nonsense, but I've seen quite a lot of bullshit people are getting away with in web / social marketing. Basically, nobody in a "creative" agency has any fucking clue how statistics work, so they fudge some numbers and invent interpretations. Customers don't have a clue either, but they're compelled to believe because they spent money on it, and since actual sales data are hard to correlate with particular actions, the agency can extract money from their client as long as the client isn't doing too badly. It reminds me of an article posted here a month ago[0]. Some juicy quotes: [1]. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10872359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10872359 [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873226
- mercer 11y agoSimilarly, I have rarely met an SEO or social media expert who wasn't full of shit, and I have to deal with these people on a regular basis. 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.
- Elepsis 11y agoI don't frequently wish the loss of a job upon other people, but I dearly hope everyone involved in producing that document was fired for it, because there is not an iota of substance in those pages.
- duskwuff 11y agoOne iota, possibly. The "color theory" section on page 25 is actually halfway reasonable. (I like to imagine the employee working on that part was rolling their eyes wildly at the insanity going on around them.)
- stordoff 11y agoI was half-expecting to find something along the lines of "Ignore this /\ (also this \/)" somewhere on that page, as it's the only thing I saw in the whole document that didn't look like it fell out of some broken Markov chain generator.
- jhanschoo 11y agoActually, I thought that the main concept of a logo that, when printed on a cylinder, had its white line seem to change its shape depending on horizontal angle, was pretty cool. But it was terrible to have to slog through all the other stuff.
- LarryMade2 11y agoThis is what you get when you have a bunch of scientists and engineers looking for jobs in other markets.
- Avalaxy 11y agoAre you implying this is science? Because I don't see it being backed by any science.
- LarryMade2 11y agoLook at pages 21, 26, 27, I think they pulled in a scientist to help with those... I'm not saying its all science, but part of the BS is trying to be science-y.
- duskwuff 11y agoNah. None of that is science; it just has a few sciencey-sounding words in it. My guess would be they were trying to come up with a post-hoc "scientific basis" for their branding decisions? 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?
- kevin_thibedeau 11y agoI think it's just English lit majors who are also BBT fans.
- chishaku 11y agoEven after reading all the comments, I still wasn't ready for that.
- ErikAugust 11y agoPeter Arnell of the Arnell Group: http://gawker.com/244608/new-yorks-worst-bosses-peter-arnell http://gawker.com/244608/new-yorks-worst-bosses-peter-arnell
- jacobolus 11y agoI still suspect that was a hoax or some kind of guerrilla marketing thing. The source was a reddit comment, and as far as I know nobody ever confirmed the PDF’s legitimacy. https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/7w0i2/pepsi_logo_a_response/c07k9l7 https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/7w0i2/pepsi_logo_a_r... Still pretty amusing though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law in action.
- CamperBob2 11y agoThe .PDF metadata says it's from 2008, produced on a Mac running what was then a fairly high-end package (Acrobat Distiller from the InDesign CS3 suite.) Assuming nobody went to the trouble of adding bogus metadata, it's easy to believe that it really came from an ad agency.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoGenius. I haven't laughed this hard in ages.
- wallacoloo 11y agoThe tagline on the following page, "dimensionalize exponentially" is just about my favorite phrase of all time.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y agoSo the new Pepsi logo apparently came back from the future. Why wasn't it in the movie then?
- stuart78 11y agoMy favorite part is when they align the golden ratio to get the white curve "just right"... and then just do a bunch of other random shit w/ the stripe. SCIENCE!
- idle_zealot 11y agoIs this a joke, or just groupthink at its finest?
- daltonlp 11y agoA great satire of these: https://medium.com/@localweb/forward-slash-the-story-of-how-massimo-guzm%C3%A1n-turned-our-simple-logo-into-a-brand-of-possibility-e32817bda1d3 https://medium.com/@localweb/forward-slash-the-story-of-how-... Worth reading for the "Tri-Venn Diabrand"
- manigandham 11y agoPeter Arnell is known for this, just search his name on google and you'll get lots of colorful articles. The Arnell Group was also behind the Tropicana redesign disaster [1]. 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-drops-package-redesign/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/in-blow-to-arnell-tropicana-drop... 2. https://www.instagram.com/blackberry/ https://www.instagram.com/blackberry/
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dontscale 11y agoOh gosh, I didn't realize how heinous that video was until just now. Uber ego.
- draw_down 11y agoI thought their branding was pretty good before they did this. I find the app icon particularly mystifying.
- peteretep 11y agoI thought it was a new "app is updating" image provided by my phone at first
- throw_away 11y agoI thought it was some sort of chinese new year's thing like in trivia crack.
- __jal 11y agoI was going with Pacman, now middle-aged, eating square dots for fiber.
- such_a_casual 11y agolooks like a toilet seat to me
- calbear81 11y agoThey want to move away from the "black car" roots that was embodied by the original branding. Silver badge, dark motifs, etc. all evoke the limo/upscale transportation service and the new brand is all about the ways they've moved beyond that. 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).
- draw_down 11y agoAh, I guess that reason for rebranding does make sense. Still really don't get the app icon, though.
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoI don't know if Travis Kalanick smokes pot, but if he does, then yes. 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. http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_identity_for_uber_done_in_house.php http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo...
- jessaustin 11y agoIn the "design team" photo, it looks like he was pretty baked when he combed his hair that afternoon.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoI blame Mad Men and "The Carousel" for making it more possible to sell companies stuff like this.
- daturkel 11y agoComplex and seemingly pretentious design pitches are actually a good way to explain to a company the way a design or design metaphor might subconsciously impact or impress its users. There are two problems here though: 1) the pitch is inane, for the reasons pointed out in the linked post, and 2) even if the idea weren't dumb, spelling it out explicitly for the customer is a great way to ruin the magic. (Fedex doesn't tell everyone to look for the arrow in their logo, and Gmail's slogan isn't "The envelope is also an M for mail!") Good design is often subtle of even invisible, and not just logos.
- giancarlostoro 11y agoWell said, never realized the arrow in FedEx. Yeah, I'm still to become a Uber user, but reading that article made me feel like they're over-doing it a bit much.
- georgechen 11y agoI have a theory about large (and well known) cooperation reguarding brands. 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.
- giancarlostoro 11y agoThat sounds accurate, most people don't like change too much because they get used to it, but Google at least didn't do something as extreme as Uber. But you're right, it wont stop people from using the service.
- sciguy77 11y agoI am so, so confused by Uber's marketing video. I feel like its satirical. I'd love to hear if anyone has the inside scoop of how it was made/ how Uber employees feel about it.
- davidw 11y agoIt was made with bits. And atoms.
- sciguy77 11y agoDon't forget BLT sandwiches! And moms.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoAnd kittens. The kitten was the moment I literally LOL'ed.
- chris_wot 11y agoDon't forget that Uber also moves icecreams.
- ihuman 11y agoUber is using bits to transmit the video of the atoms.
- randomname2 11y agoYes, surely that must have been satire, and Uber employees thought it was hilarious?
- joelrunyon 11y agoFeels like it was made for investors more so than the consumers.
- chris_wot 11y ago
- sketchthat 11y agoWhen I watched this video yesterday I thought they are trying too hard to explain what their new logo means because no one will see the connection between the strange new logo and the Uber we already know. Also - complete marketing wank.
- masterleep 11y agoThe app icon is horrible. It replaces something recognizable with a completely corporate looking image of nothingness. The brand is bland!
- SilasX 11y agoAgreed, the old one was beautiful and distinctive, and conveyed a sense of greatness, at least to me.
- mbrock 11y agoTacky nonsense aside, the weird neurotic insistence on "human stuff" just reminds me of Blade Runner's Tyrell Corporation. I can hear the Uber voiceover woman saying: "Do you like our owl?"
- tomphoolery 11y ago> That frame says “self-driving cars.” Their business plan appears to include firing all of their drivers. 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.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kej 11y agoI'm pretty sure that a car capable of driving itself, with everything that entails, is capable of getting itself back to the service facility before its gas runs out.
- nvader 11y agoI'm sad the grandparent was deleted, I really wanted to comment with: "Horse-less carriages will never work! How would you fill them with grass?"
- saulrh 11y agoThey don't. They're much better at estimating their future fuel usage and routing/scheduling a refill. That refill will probably be at some kind of base station for a while, yes, but you'd probably want to run the car through a tiny maintenance cycle every 12 hours anyway, so that works out. If they somehow actually run out of gas, they do exactly the same thing you would: call family or a friend (AKA home base) and they'll drive a can out to you, or they call AAA, who does the same.
- moonlighter 11y agoLike an iRobot Roomba, it'll probably just drive itself back to the charging station?
- chejazi 11y agoOn the bottom of https://brand.uber.com/#our-new-look https://brand.uber.com/#our-new-look, they explain the roots of the new icon as well: 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?
- gerbilly 11y agoYou shouldn't have to explain a logo or icon. Look at any good logo[1] and it's self explanatory. [1]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/FedEx_Express.svg/1000px-FedEx_Express.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Fe...
- grmarcil 11y agoThe brand video reads a little pompous and I haven't really taken a liking to the new icon yet, but I don't think the concept in the brand video is really that faulty. Uber is one of first companies to integrate software with an external consumer-facing physical service on a big, meaningful scale. 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.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago"Uber is one of first companies to integrate software with an external consumer-facing physical service on a big, meaningful scale." That's not even remotely true.
- grmarcil 11y agoI'm genuinely interested in what you think is a counterexample. Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious or we're just considering different definitions.
- such_a_casual 11y agoWhat is the thing that allowed Uber to exist in the first place? Cheesy? How about nonsensical and a sick laugh at their ignorant customers?
- yggydrasily 11y agoI wonder how much of their most recent round of funding went towards this.
- chjohasbrouck 11y agohttps://brand.uber.com/#bits-atoms https://brand.uber.com/#bits-atoms > "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.
- eCa 11y agoYes, it is a good thing that they don't create people that serve industries. That would be creepy.
- DalekBaldwin 11y agoI thought they were trying to allay people's fears of their self-driving cars going full Skynet, but now I realize I probably misinterpreted what they meant by "the other way around": "We leave no person unturned, to create industries that serve bits and atoms."
- TeMPOraL 11y agoWell, this sounds creepy either way. "To Serve Man" comes to mind.
- reality_czech 11y agoYeah, that would mean creating... self-driving cars. Oh, wait...
- roymurdock 11y agoThat's the part where I lost it as well. I simply had to close the video after hearing that, it made me so uncomfortable.
- Theodores 11y agoI dislike Uber for reasons I can't really articulate, they just are not for me. I wait aeons for the night bus rather than just get a cab, I don't even think 'Uber'. So I am new to the branding, having not seen what went on before. 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.
- Apocryphon 11y agoHave you ever considered taking Lyft?
- YuriNiyazov 11y agoActually, this reminds me of "This Is a Generic Brand Video, by Dissolve" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YBtspm8j8M 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.
- bduerst 11y agoOr John Oliver's "jangly guitar music": https://youtu.be/X9wHzt6gBgI?t=2m21s https://youtu.be/X9wHzt6gBgI?t=2m21s
- randycupertino 11y agoAlso Blue's Traveler's The Hook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdz5kCaCRFM 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"
- Thirdegree 11y agoPop 101 - Marianas Trench: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kpWkV7IBUw 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"
- Tsagadai 11y agoThat is absolutely gold. I have been in rebranding meetings where almost that exact video has been shown.
- spott 11y agoThis reminds me of "Better Off Ted"[0], where the protagonist worked for veridian dynamics[1], a faceless multinational conglomerate. [0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235547/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235547/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia8OKMlqxLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia8OKMlqxLs
- zipwitch 11y agoFrom a company whose marketing strategy is "act like assholes", with a business plan of "break the law and then whine when anyone points out that we're a bunch of criminals in suits", nothing surprises me anymore, including the fact that they're still in business.
- jrochkind1 11y agoI still remember when the HN groupthink LOVED Uber. I am not nostalgic. I like it better this way.
- beedogs 11y agoSome of us have hated them all along.
- randycupertino 11y agoI'll have you know I hated Uber before it was cool.
- EGreg 11y agoI'd like everyone here to know that I was always indifferent towards Uber and still am.
- zanny 11y agoI also hate the regulations they cite as a reason why Uber should not exist. 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.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoWhy is Uber better than regulated systems? What is superior about poorly-paid drivers, lack of labour rights, surge pricing, lack of disabled accommodations, no guarantee of service in all areas, lack of fare caps, no concessionary travel, having to use a smartphone to pay, unaccredited and unknowledgeable drivers, generic unmarked vehicles, etc.?
- mozumder 11y agoI'm really hoping one of these drone cab companies rebrands themselves as Johnny Cab.
- bby 11y agoI thought my UBER icon was still loading on my phone... it looks like the apple update pending / downloading icon,
- Smushman 11y agoSearch for the still frame labeled 'Self-Driving Cars'. Thank you iStock photo. http://www.istockphoto.com/video/aerial-bangkok-riverside-downtown-at-sunset-gm469043744-62197782 http://www.istockphoto.com/video/aerial-bangkok-riverside-do...
- ha8o8le 11y agoThe author forgot to mention how horrible the new app icon is.
- ape4 11y agoThat's Ken Thompson(seated) and Dennis Ritchie(standing) at a PDP-11 in 1972 at 0:18 into the video.
- rajacombinator 11y agoJust updated so I could see the new app icon and actually loled IRL. Someone trolling pretty hard, they couldn't even put the U rightside up. Glad to see they're spending that 2x preference money wisely.
- randycupertino 11y agoOhhh it's supposed to be a sideways U? I thought it was a C and couldn't understand why the heck they made their logo the letter C.
- Geekette 11y agoOh, my. that video is not going to help dissuade the notion for some that the new logos are reminiscent of assholes because the centre apparently resembles an anus: http://gizmodo.com/ubers-new-logo-its-an-asshole-1756692669 http://gizmodo.com/ubers-new-logo-its-an-asshole-1756692669 Noticed the same opinion from others elsewhere, including Twitter.
- chris_wot 11y agoNot quite as bad as the logo fail from the Office of Government Control (OGC) in the UK. http://www.boredpanda.com/worst-logo-fails-ever/ http://www.boredpanda.com/worst-logo-fails-ever/
- vinceguidry 11y agoBranding has an element of magic to it. You are conjuring something up out of thin air with the intended effect of surprising and delighting the people that see it. 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.
- beedogs 11y agoTo me, the logo reminds me of an asshole, which is particularly appropriate, because Uber are a bunch of assholes.
- stcredzero 11y agoBefore shredding this mess, let us first give credit where it is due. They did get the age of the universe about right. General consensus right now places it at 13.8 billion years, and that is when all matter in the universe was created. However, not all atoms were “born” then, as they indicate, as most have been generated through fusion in stars and supernova. 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 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.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pauldbau 11y agoFelt like I was watching an episode of Silicon Valley, just needed the Hooli logo at the end. Think I threw up a little at some parts (am allergic to cheese), great comedy though, would recommend A++
- atemerev 11y ago> Their business plan appears to include firing all of their drivers. 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.
- ekianjo 11y agoMost jobs history soon? This is as baseless as uber s marketing.
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- stepanhruda 11y agoMaking fun of them here is cute. You know what will hurt them? If you start taking Lyft.
- chris_wot 11y agoPlease do!
- lukasm 11y agosomeone from marketing is Peter Thiel fan http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/08/vc-peter-thiel-you-can-either-invest-in-bits-or-atoms/ http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/08/vc-peter-thiel-you-can-eit...
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- JonnieCache 11y agoI dunno, is this not just the inevitable collision of the current post-hipster aesthetic and the usual corporate PHB nonsense? I mean, what exactly did you expect the uber brand video to be like? How could it possibly have been any different from this? http://carles.buzz/the-contemporary-conformist/ http://carles.buzz/the-contemporary-conformist/
- ryanSrich 11y ago> post-hipster aesthetic 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.
- randycupertino 11y agoTotally can see this happening... it's unfathomable to me how this pile of nonsensical steaming dogcrap could get approval through multiple layers of professional review before it went live. It's the tone deaf airbnb ads happening all over again. Too many yes-men and everyone starts believing their own bullshit.
- chris_wot 11y agoIt's anti-aesthetical postmodernist anti-intellectualism wrapped up into into a single construct of pure and utter nonsense. I see what you did there!
- mmanfrin 11y agoI get the need for a nice rousing rebranding video, and I get that others tend to go over the top with superfluities and appeals to emotion, but Uber's 'connecting the bits and atoms for the first time' just pushed me so far beyond eyerolling that it felt like I was being shown a video of Kalanick huffing his own fart. 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.
- randycupertino 11y ago> Uber's 'connecting the bits and atoms for the first time' just pushed me so far beyond eyerolling that it felt like I was being shown a video of Kalanick huffing his own fart. 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-town http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104282/smuggy-san-francisco-to...
- untilHellbanned 11y agoAnd I thought Facebook forever owned the moniker Supreme-Lame-Ass-Company-Of-The-Millenium. Uber wins in a landslide. 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.
- matthewbauer 11y agoThat video reminds me of one of those ads for Veridian Dynamics from Better Off Ted. Link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ia8OKMlqxLs https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ia8OKMlqxLs
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- philjr 11y agoThe sentiment behind it reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GMQhOm-Dqo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GMQhOm-Dqo Problem is, it seems a little disingenuous
- randycupertino 11y agoUber just needs to get over themselves. You're a taxi dispatch company with an app. Stop fronting like you're using cutting edge technology to cure cancer or brokering world peace.
- zhoujianfu 11y agoTheir new logo always makes me think I have an app on my iOS home screen that is not quite finished installing! Annoying!
- untilHellbanned 11y agoDear OP, thank you. My brain must have gone into complete shutdown because I could only think of one word, "terrible" to describe this video. Such a terse dismissal is an obvious disservice to the level of awfulness that Uber continues to unleash on the world.
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- multinglets 11y agoThis is why I tend to buy the idea that Monster intentionally hides satanic themes in their branding.
- funkybooty 11y agoPiling on, the representation of a bit in the beginning fades in and out. That makes no sense. Reminds me of Orwell's essay on writing, how poor writing is a necessary feature of propaganda.
- novaleaf 11y agothe video was taken down. Anybody have a working link?
- aftbit 11y agoFor the ctrl-f happy: "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.
- pm24601 11y agoYes. Next question?
- surferbayarea 11y agoIt's uncannily similar to this! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sbi.SBFreedom&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sbi.SBFree...
- JauntTrooper 11y agoIt reminds me of Veridian Dynamics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_bPobs8T5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_bPobs8T5w
- synaesthesisx 11y agoThis is one of the most cringeworthy things I've seen in a while. I wonder how much they ended up spending on this...
- melbourne_mat 11y agoI don't get why the writer is so surprised. Marketing is a dodgy industry. So many advertisements contain lies our bullshit - most often small ones, sometimes large. And it's all pushed onto an audience that is ignorant or at the very least accustomed to the barrage.
- ddingus 11y agoIt has a fucking kitten in it! I love kittens, but jesus... that's an embarrassingly egregious appeal to das cute! Overall, this is epic comedy. 5 stars, would recommend!
- chris_wot 11y agoThey leave no bit or atom unturned. I'm inspired!