We have the trophies in the trophy cases in Pittsburgh to show we are winners, but to Amazon we aren’t. Thanks to the McGarrah Jessee Ad Agency, we can have Alexa apologise to us for the Amazon HQ2 not being built here.
Not one of our Pittsburgh followers or have an Alexa? Check HERE for your cities appology.
The Please Apologize skill was built by Austin-based ad agency McGarrah Jessee, and released earlier this year.
Enable the skill and ask Alexa to please apologize, and you’ll get a plaintive, or sometimes petulant, apology for random forces beyond her control: traffic, weather, barking dogs. But for residents of the 18 rejected cities, Alexa delivers a different sort of mea culpa. (At least until Alexa’s boss makes her stop.)
- “We thought of a lot of things Alexa should apologize for. Actually, we thought of a lot of things that other should apologize for, and a lot of things that deserve an apology thatnobody is apologizing for. So we built a skill for that,” said Jeremy Cox, digital director at McGarrah Jessee.
- “Living in one of the finalist cities for HQ2 – after all the effort local governments put into their proposals and all the months we’ve waited for an answer – it would ease the pain if Amazon said ‘I’m sorry.’ We figured the only way to get that apology was to hack Amazon’s own technology,” said Sarag Weigl, creative director at McGarrah Jessee.
- “It’s purely entertainment. We may add more functionality down the line, but the original intent was to build a skill that our creatives could have fun with, and hopefully get a laugh,” said Weigl.
And also a light-hearted reminder that a little politeness goes a long way. Thank you, Alexa.