4 ms·

When your Brand is as valuable as Apple or Boeing, bad publicity is a thing. They don't need to be known, but they need to maintain the positive values associa

When your Brand is as valuable as Apple or Boeing, bad publicity is a thing. They don't need to be known, but they need to maintain the positive values associated with their brand. The Apple brand is their most valuable asset, they probably destroyed billions in brand value with the shitstorm around this horribly distasteful ad.

chuckadams 2y ago
> they probably destroyed billions in brand value So go short AAPL, Jim Cramer. My bold prediction is this ad does diddly to their bottom line. You really think people are going to boycott Apple over it?
- stephc_int13 2y ago
  I am not talking about stock, here. Stock is short-sighted, and I don't expect any boycott. The consequences of the slow degradation of a brand are measured in decades. If you take a look at the Vision Pro, they didn't expect selling them like hot cakes, given the price, but from what I've heard they still missed their projections, by a long shot. This pattern will repeat, one failed or tepid product launch at a time, eroding confidence, and ultimately, yes, the stock will plunge.
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    You're reading tea leaves now. Meanwhile Apple has actually measurable problems like plummeting iPhone sales in China, and I guarantee that's not because of a stupid ad.
    - stephc_int13 2y ago
      To be clear, I don't think the ad itself is the issue, I think this is pretty benign given their scale. But I think they have a leadership problem. Tim Cook is a glorified bean counter, not a creator, not a visionary, and it shows. I know that most people are looking at the stock and will say that everything is fine. Sure. I am looking at the products, and except for M series of SoC, this is all boring.
      - chuckadams 2y ago
        Apple's valuation is up over 1000% since Tim Cook became CEO. His greatest failing is that he isn't Steve Jobs, but most corporations would literally kill to have a bean counter like Tim Cook. Yes, he's in the hot seat, and Wall Street is very "What have you done for me today?", but I don't see shareholders calling for his head. All empires fall, but today is not that day for Apple.
        ethbr1 2y ago
        > Apple's valuation is up over 1000% since Tim Cook became CEO GE's valuation was up ~4500% during Jack Welch's tenure as CEO.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      You two are talking about separate things. Parent is talking about brand goodwill. You're talking about revenue. The two are different, but not unrelated. One reason Apple can run the margins and move the product that it does is because it's Apple. If it were "random company" and didn't benefit from its RDF, those numbers wouldn't be sustainable. Which, in a nutshell, is the Tim Cook problem -- you can make all the sales numbers go in the right direction, but that's not the product magic that Apple has historically benefited from (and been valued at).
    - maxwell 2y ago
      Executive dysfunction seems the root issue. Tim, Phil, and Craig have been running on Steve and Jony's fumes for years, and now have no ideas beyond incrementing numbers and buying back stock. It's like ol' Gil all over again. Apple is the default choice for grandparents again, but they don't even have the schools anymore (Google conquered edu with Chromebooks).
  - chasil 2y ago
    I am not getting such horrible vibes from the ad. Maybe the strongest sense is that the iPad comes from the island of broken toys? Slightly less emphatic but more sinister is that an iPad cannot help but involve itself in the destruction of the arts. I do agree that the ad does not have any observable moral upside, and it was a mistake to run it. But then again, if Apple did have a YouTube collection of ads that they chose not to run and discussion of why, it might be easier to trust them. They are so opaque at the moment that trust is a very big ask.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    >Stock is short-sighted stock is not short sighted. It does react quickly to information (which means it was too late to short a while ago) but to think that you can make money by not buying stock now, but waiting to buy it at another time is really terrible advice, and it's been refuted. To believe that stock is short-sighted is to believe that investers as a group are dumber than you are because they've put their money into the market but you know better.
    - hiatus 2y ago
      > To believe that stock is short-sighted is to believe that investers as a group are dumber than you are because they've put their money into the market but you know better. There is a saying you may not be familiar with, "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
      - fsckboy 2y ago
        what's your definition of irrational?... the market doesn't know the future, it just incorporates current knowledge and opinion. Is AI a bubble right now? the vast riches afforded those who make the right call when AI is ready is justification enough for current enthusiasm, no irrationality needs to be hypothesized. And like people who lost their bet on the 49ers to win the Superbowl, there's no reason to posit irrationality if a bet doesn't pay.
    - stephc_int13 2y ago
      The stock market, or any kind of market really, is nothing else than a huge distributed pricing machine. It is incredibly good at doing that. But it is short sighted. It is able to integrate risks to some extent, on a short time scale, but it is very bad at processing second or third order effects, and can't do strategy. In other words, the famous invisible hand is completely unable to predict the future. Humans are also notoriously bad at that, but still better. This is why we have states and CEOs.
      - fsckboy 2y ago
        at the beginning of every day, the market has a greater probability of going up than down, and a risk adjusted positive expected value (which is a different thing) Therefore, your money should always be "in the market", not out of the market. Therefore, it's very difficult to make the case that the market is short sighted. I think what you are trying to say is that immediate risks are better understood than longer term, so the more distant future has higher volatility.
  - dialup_sounds 2y ago
    I would not bet against any company on the basis of people whinging on the internet unless it's about their actual product or service being bad at it's job. (e.g. Humane and Rabbit are probably doomed) Consider that when talking about something measured in decades the examples that come to mind are things people said in the last few weeks. But what were people talking about a decade ago? Which of those things actually reflected the long term trajectory of the company?
    - maxwell 2y ago
      My Gen A son enjoys his Meta Quest and jokes about the Vision Pro.
dylan604 2y ago
I love the name play with "If it's Boeing, I'm not going". Waiting for something like that for Apple. Let me get my popcorn...
- kirubakaran 2y ago
  How about “causing walled garden headaches since Eden”
  - dirtyhippiefree 2y ago
    Doesn’t really ring, no rhyming bling…
    - kirubakaran 2y ago
      It does in native Ayapaneco
      - dirtyhippiefree 2y ago
        Translating poetry is tricky at best…worse if transliteration and cross-cultural currents pull in multiple directions…
- araes 2y ago
  Maybe "crapple" ...
  - dylan604 2y ago
    "If it's Apple, it's crapple" was my first stab as well. Just didn't have the same je ne sais quoi to me about it though.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  The app'll work best with genuine apple handcuffs.

chuckadams 2y ago

> they probably destroyed billions in brand value So go short AAPL, Jim Cramer. My bold prediction is this ad does diddly to their bottom line. You really think people are going to boycott Apple over it?

stephc_int13 2y ago
I am not talking about stock, here. Stock is short-sighted, and I don't expect any boycott. The consequences of the slow degradation of a brand are measured in decades. If you take a look at the Vision Pro, they didn't expect selling them like hot cakes, given the price, but from what I've heard they still missed their projections, by a long shot. This pattern will repeat, one failed or tepid product launch at a time, eroding confidence, and ultimately, yes, the stock will plunge.
- chuckadams 2y ago
  You're reading tea leaves now. Meanwhile Apple has actually measurable problems like plummeting iPhone sales in China, and I guarantee that's not because of a stupid ad.
  - stephc_int13 2y ago
    To be clear, I don't think the ad itself is the issue, I think this is pretty benign given their scale. But I think they have a leadership problem. Tim Cook is a glorified bean counter, not a creator, not a visionary, and it shows. I know that most people are looking at the stock and will say that everything is fine. Sure. I am looking at the products, and except for M series of SoC, this is all boring.
    - chuckadams 2y ago
      Apple's valuation is up over 1000% since Tim Cook became CEO. His greatest failing is that he isn't Steve Jobs, but most corporations would literally kill to have a bean counter like Tim Cook. Yes, he's in the hot seat, and Wall Street is very "What have you done for me today?", but I don't see shareholders calling for his head. All empires fall, but today is not that day for Apple.
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        > Apple's valuation is up over 1000% since Tim Cook became CEO GE's valuation was up ~4500% during Jack Welch's tenure as CEO.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    You two are talking about separate things. Parent is talking about brand goodwill. You're talking about revenue. The two are different, but not unrelated. One reason Apple can run the margins and move the product that it does is because it's Apple. If it were "random company" and didn't benefit from its RDF, those numbers wouldn't be sustainable. Which, in a nutshell, is the Tim Cook problem -- you can make all the sales numbers go in the right direction, but that's not the product magic that Apple has historically benefited from (and been valued at).
  - maxwell 2y ago
    Executive dysfunction seems the root issue. Tim, Phil, and Craig have been running on Steve and Jony's fumes for years, and now have no ideas beyond incrementing numbers and buying back stock. It's like ol' Gil all over again. Apple is the default choice for grandparents again, but they don't even have the schools anymore (Google conquered edu with Chromebooks).
- chasil 2y ago
  I am not getting such horrible vibes from the ad. Maybe the strongest sense is that the iPad comes from the island of broken toys? Slightly less emphatic but more sinister is that an iPad cannot help but involve itself in the destruction of the arts. I do agree that the ad does not have any observable moral upside, and it was a mistake to run it. But then again, if Apple did have a YouTube collection of ads that they chose not to run and discussion of why, it might be easier to trust them. They are so opaque at the moment that trust is a very big ask.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  >Stock is short-sighted stock is not short sighted. It does react quickly to information (which means it was too late to short a while ago) but to think that you can make money by not buying stock now, but waiting to buy it at another time is really terrible advice, and it's been refuted. To believe that stock is short-sighted is to believe that investers as a group are dumber than you are because they've put their money into the market but you know better.
  - hiatus 2y ago
    > To believe that stock is short-sighted is to believe that investers as a group are dumber than you are because they've put their money into the market but you know better. There is a saying you may not be familiar with, "Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      what's your definition of irrational?... the market doesn't know the future, it just incorporates current knowledge and opinion. Is AI a bubble right now? the vast riches afforded those who make the right call when AI is ready is justification enough for current enthusiasm, no irrationality needs to be hypothesized. And like people who lost their bet on the 49ers to win the Superbowl, there's no reason to posit irrationality if a bet doesn't pay.
  - stephc_int13 2y ago
    The stock market, or any kind of market really, is nothing else than a huge distributed pricing machine. It is incredibly good at doing that. But it is short sighted. It is able to integrate risks to some extent, on a short time scale, but it is very bad at processing second or third order effects, and can't do strategy. In other words, the famous invisible hand is completely unable to predict the future. Humans are also notoriously bad at that, but still better. This is why we have states and CEOs.
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      at the beginning of every day, the market has a greater probability of going up than down, and a risk adjusted positive expected value (which is a different thing) Therefore, your money should always be "in the market", not out of the market. Therefore, it's very difficult to make the case that the market is short sighted. I think what you are trying to say is that immediate risks are better understood than longer term, so the more distant future has higher volatility.
- dialup_sounds 2y ago
  I would not bet against any company on the basis of people whinging on the internet unless it's about their actual product or service being bad at it's job. (e.g. Humane and Rabbit are probably doomed) Consider that when talking about something measured in decades the examples that come to mind are things people said in the last few weeks. But what were people talking about a decade ago? Which of those things actually reflected the long term trajectory of the company?
  - maxwell 2y ago
    My Gen A son enjoys his Meta Quest and jokes about the Vision Pro.

dylan604 2y ago

I love the name play with "If it's Boeing, I'm not going". Waiting for something like that for Apple. Let me get my popcorn...

kirubakaran 2y ago
How about “causing walled garden headaches since Eden”
- dirtyhippiefree 2y ago
  Doesn’t really ring, no rhyming bling…
  - kirubakaran 2y ago
    It does in native Ayapaneco
    - dirtyhippiefree 2y ago
      Translating poetry is tricky at best…worse if transliteration and cross-cultural currents pull in multiple directions…
araes 2y ago
Maybe "crapple" ...
- dylan604 2y ago
  "If it's Apple, it's crapple" was my first stab as well. Just didn't have the same je ne sais quoi to me about it though.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
The app'll work best with genuine apple handcuffs.