I’m sure a lot of you experienced the same thing I did, as one of the 81 million users. You were shuffling through your music playlist on iTunes or on your iPhone when an unfamiliar tune comes on – U2. Or you discovered numerous updates on social media about the mysterious U2 album automatically downloaded.
As marketing students, we are constantly reminded that it’s not about the reach. It’s about reaching the right people. You would much rather post an ad message in front of the few right people than to gets in front of every single person in the world. For the latter, often it will backfire with annoyance leading to negative perceptions of the intrusive brand.
“For the people out there who have no interest in checking us out, look at it this way: The blood, sweat and tears of some Irish guys are in your junk mail,” Bono said. Why waste your resources on something that will make zero or even negative effects? Perhaps a better option would have been to gift the album (free download) – which would attract U2 fans and those who are interested. That would be a nice gift and likely be spread through social media – especially amongst the fans out there.