Why “going live” is not always a good idea
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I must admit, last week I had a pretty good chuckle over the video of Mark Zuckerberg absolutely failing during a live demo of Meta’s new $800 AI-enabled glasses. During the live demo, Zuckerberg tried and failed repeatedly to pick up a WhatsApp call on the glasses. AV Club has a great roundup here.
It reminded me distinctly of Elon Musk’s failed “bulletproof” glass demo, in which the supposed bulletproof glass shattered on impact instead of remaining intact as it was supposed to.
Both videos are below for your own amusement.
In both cases, the CEO was left to flounder in front of a live audience and a huge streaming audience, making bad quips to try to cover their embarrassment.
Zuckerberg simply said, “I don’t know what to tell you guys,” which may be one of the more honest things he has ever said publicly.
Musk was better at thinking on his feet, joking “Eh, not bad. A little room for improvement… we’ll fix it in post.”
These incidents are my two favorite examples of a corporate live event going disastrously wrong. But there are plenty of examples out there. For some reason, executives seem to think that doing a totally live demo is a great idea. They are super keen to host a livestream event with millions of people tuning in to watch them. Maybe it’s an ego thing. But it seems like many executives don’t consider Murphy’s Law.
During the Tesla demo, Musk says, “We threw wrenches, we threw everything. We even literally threw the kitchen sink at the glass, and it didn’t break. For some weird reason, it broke now, I don’t know why.”
Meta eventually attributed the glasses failure to a “never-before-seen bug.” (cue wah-wah sound)
I totally believe there is truth to both of those statements. Even if you practice the presentation a million times, things tend to go sideways when you’re live in front of millions of people. Expect the unexpected, right?
The unfortunate truth is that there are no second chances, and the internet (shockingly) is not very forgiving. Instead of creating a big buzz around the product and its coolness, both companies found themselves at the center of a media blitz publicizing their failure. Given the amount of money and resources companies pour into R&D of new products, it seems like a terrible way to introduce it to the market – as the punchline of a huge joke.
Plus you know there were some heads that rolled in the aftermath.
In a way, I feel like these executives set themselves up for failure. They invite the world media to attend, so the room is full of cameras. The livestream goes out live with no delay. So, if something goes sideways, it is fully documented and is immediately “out there.” In most cases, I would honestly say the risk is not worth the reward.
I would encourage all of my communication friends to carefully consider the pros and cons of doing such a live event – particularly for a product launch. Should your executive come to you with the brilliant idea of a live demo, show them these two videos and ask them if they are sure. Would it make more sense to create a sizzle reel and just play it during the live event? That way you know for sure that the audience will see what you intended them to see.
For companies obsessed with controlling the narrative, it blows my mind that so many executives are so willing to put their corporate reputation and their new big product launch at risk because they want so badly to “go live.”