Sunday Read No. 6: Mija, Apple's new Ads, and Meta's new COO
Welcome to the 6th edition of the Sunday Read. This week we're talking about Mija, Apple's new Ads, and Meta's new COO.
Mija
Over the weekend, Vero and I managed to catch the last showing of Mija in San Francisco. Mija was on a limited free theatrical release in California before launching on Disney+. All credit goes to Vero for grabbing tickets for us and showing the magic of Mija before the Disney+ release.
Mija chronicles the emotional and complex stories of Doris Muñoz and Jacks Haupt, the daughters of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, navigating their careers in the music industry. For these two, “making it” isn’t just a dream, it’s a necessity.
Throughout the documentary, you'll see images from LA, family, hardship, hustle, and joy that is rare to find all in one place.
What I enjoyed about Mija
I enjoyed watching this documentary because of how intimate and well-produced it was. In this documentary by Isabel Castro, Doris takes us through her journey as a manager of musicians. It includes the ups, hard downs, and the importance of her family as a central point in her life.
Mija creates a documentary for a group of people, children of immigrants, that historically does not have shows, TV, or documentaries made for them.
Mija's launch date on Disney+
This documentary premieres on Disney+ on Friday, September 16, 2022.
Apple might add more Ads to iPhones
Apple could eventually bring ads to more of the apps that come pre-installed on your iPhone and other Apple devices, including Maps, Books, and Podcasts. According to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has internally tested search ads in Maps, which could display recommendations when you search for restaurants, stores, or other nearby businesses. (The Verge)
Many articles discuss how Apple's privacy take has changed marketing forever. In an earnings call in February, Meta said that Apple's privacy-centric changes to its iOS operating system, which make it harder to both target advertisements and measure their effectiveness, would cost the social giant $10 billion in revenue in 2022. (Adweek).
The so what about Apple's Ads
As day-to-day experiences become more ad-heavy, what does that mean for consumers?
Apple's privacy stance made a lot of sense earlier when it launched to protect consumers from invasive ad targeting. However, is it a net positive if the new strategy takes the marketing spend on Meta and other platforms and moves it to Apple?
Will our phones become more ad-heavy if Apple is the dominant distributor of ad content now?
Side Note: I purchased an iPhone in high school after being an Android fan due to the number of ads on androids. When you bought an Android phone from T-Mobile or AT&T, it included tons of bloatware and installed apps. I even tried to flash my android phone with a new build but gave up and bought an iPhone.
Javier Olivan is Meta's New COO
Bloomberg did a recent profile on Javier Olivan that I thought was interesting to share.
A few highlights from the profile:
- In terms of star power, Olivan may be Sandberg’s opposite. He rarely speaks publicly or posts to Facebook or Instagram. But he’s had a hand in all of Facebook’s major competitive battles and acquisitions. If the public has heard his name at all, it might be from internal emails obtained by Congress in a report on Meta’s alleged monopoly status, or from leaked documents shared by whistleblower Frances Haugen portraying the company’s “grow at all costs” mentality.
- Zuckerberg’s choice of Olivan to be COO suggests something even bigger needs fixing: Meta’s business. For perhaps the first time in a decade, the company feels vulnerable. Facebook’s growth has started to plateau, and Zuckerberg is dramatically changing many products to combat rising competition from TikTok.
- But Olivan will have more responsibility than Sandberg in other ways. He’ll oversee both advertising sales and advertising product, for example, meaning the people building Meta’s ad products will be interacting more with the people hearing feedback from marketers.
Organizational Design
I've always found the question of organizational design interesting. You can take the same group of people, re-arrange the structure, and produce different results.
This chart below from Four Week MBA details four different structures that are useful in understanding how companies are structured:
- Functional: Organized based on the company's key functions
- Divisional: Organized based on the company's key products
- Matrix: Organized based on cross-functional teams and functions (aka General Manager structure)
- Flat: Organized based on self-management and a lack of managerial structures
In Meta's example, combining product and Ads operations in the same org creates more of a General Manager structure for Meta. This would fall into the Matrix category in the chart above.
In contrast, Apple is structured strictly via expertise with no Chief Product Officer or Chief Technolgy Officer. Apple uses the Functional structure. This means that the company has been organized around areas of expertise rather than individual products.
It'll be interesting to see which structure is more effective for Meta in the long run. Will it be Functional, Divisional, or a Matrix structure?