Please Apologize Skill work completed as Experience Director while at McGarrah Jessee with many other talented people
The Please Apologize Skill
An Alexa Skill That Did What Amazon Wouldn’t
18 Cities Would Face Rejection
In September 2017, Amazon announced it was searching for a home for its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2. The competition quickly became fierce with 20 cities vying for Amazon’s attention and the honor of becoming Amazon’s newest home base.
There would only be one HQ2. Um … OK, maybe two? Regardless, as one of those potential rejects, that didn’t sit well with us here in Austin. So we set out to do something about it.
Make Alexa Apologize to the Rejected Cities.
On Behalf of Amazon.
We hacked Alexa to do Amazon’s dirty work by writing custom apologies for the cities that weren’t selected. Residents of each city simply had to enable our skill and ask Alexa to “please apologize” to hear her mea culpa.
We Struck a Nerve
Amazon wasn’t amused and didn’t let us keep the HQ2 apologies up for long. But while they were live, we racked up some pretty impressive results.
173 Million+ media impressions
Press coverage in 27 markets
84 stories online and in broadcast
And there’s still plenty more Alexa can apologize for:
