The first thing to be crushed is the trumpet. Then, an industrial compressor flattens the side-by-side paint cans, buckles the piano, and levels what looks like a marble bust. The final act of destruction involves an eye popping out of a yellow ball-shaped emoji.
The compressor rises to reveal Apple's latest offering, the updated iPad Pro.
Apple CEO Tim Cook posted the ad, called “Crush,” on Tuesday after the company held an event to unveil its new tablet. “Introducing the new iPad Pro, the thinnest product we've ever made,” Cook wrote, adding, “Imagine all the things that go into making it.” Ta.
For decades, Apple has been the toast of creative people. The company has attracted designers, musicians and film editors with the promise that its products will help you “think differently.”
But some creators got a different message from this one-minute iPad ad. Rather than looking at the devices that help us create, as Cook suggested, they wonder how Big Tech is doing things by smashing and exploiting artistic tools that humans have used for centuries. I saw a metaphor for how people have profited from their own work.
The image was particularly disturbing at a time when artists were worried that generative artificial intelligence, which could write poetry and make movies, would take their jobs.
“It's extraordinary in its cruelty,” said Justin Ouellette, a software designer in Portland, Oregon, who works in animation and is a longtime user of Apple products. “Many see this as a betrayal of humanity's commitment to creative expression and a lack of understanding of the pressures artists are currently feeling.”
Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
It was the latest in a series of recent promotional blunders by a company widely considered a marketing giant. Marketing for Apple Vision Pro, which launched in January, has struggled to get the device to many customers. Last year, Apple was criticized for trumpeting the company's commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030 in an internal meeting and creating an awkward sketch depicting Octavia Spencer as Mother Earth.
Apple has been considered an advertising visionary since the 1980s. Macintosh's “1984 Super Bowl” commercial introducing his computer is one of his most famous commercials ever made. The ad, developed by the Chiat/Day agency, featured an actor throwing a sledgehammer at a screen displaying the face of a Big Brother statue, which was supposed to be a metaphor for IBM.
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after 12 years away, he sought to recapture that marketing magic. He developed the “Think Different” campaign in collaboration with Lee Crowe, who was responsible for the ad creative for the “1984” spot. This paved the way for the famous “Get a Mac” spot, which featured Mac and his PC, and saw characters from classic movies and TV shows pick up the phone and say “hello.” An original iPhone ad featuring him also appeared.
Apple's marketing touted its products as easy to use. PCs and Android smartphones advertised themselves as devices for spreadsheet executives, while Macs and iPhones advertised themselves as tools for film editors, photographers, and writers.
But Apple's advertising has been uneven over the past decade. The company canceled a 2012 campaign that featured Apple Store “geniuses” on airplanes. Critics dismissed the subsequent “Designed by Apple in California” section as “tacky.”
These issues prompted Cook to replace advertising oversight with Phil Schiller, the company's longtime head of marketing, and Toll, former president and chief creative officer of Gray, the advertising agency that created E-Trade Baby.・Transferred to Mr. Miffren.
Under Mullen, who joined the company in 2016, Apple developed some ads with its own creative team and others in collaboration with outside agency Media Arts Lab. The Cannes Lions Awards, a major advertising industry event, recognized a spot called “Bounce” for AirPods that showed a man jumping off a sidewalk while listening to music. Last year, Apple was named Creative Brand of the Year after a man sent an iPhone message saying that the lizard he was caring for had died, and the lizard suddenly rolled off his back. It was thanks to the “Rest in Peace Leon” ad that the message was deleted.
Mullen and Media Arts Lab did not respond to requests for comment on who is behind the “crash” spot.
Michael J. Miraflor, chief brand officer at venture capital firm Hannah Gray, said Apple's ads effectively offend and alienate its core customer base, the opposite of what the company did with its “1984” commercial. I said in X that I achieved that.
“It's not boring or ordinary,” Miraflor wrote. “Does it make me feel…bad? Disappointed?