Apple’s latest ad crushed it – and not in a good way.
The minute-long ad intended to highlight the thinness of the new iPad Pro struck a chord among some in the creative community – perhaps because the analogy hit too close to home in an age where artificial intelligence threatens the creators.
In the ad, an imaginary machine resembling a trash compactor crushes musical instruments, a record player, a television, a video game arcade machine, a sculpture and a painting, a chess board, computers, books , sketches and cans of paint – with a rainbow of colors overflowing like blood – to produce an iPad.
Titled “Crush!” “, the ad landed Tuesday on YouTube and on CEO Tim Cook’s account on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. This was to promote the event organized by the technology giant on Wednesday on all the new developments of the iPad.
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But the reaction was so negative that on Thursday the company issued a mea culpa.
“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to build products that empower creatives around the world,” said Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice president of marketing, in a statement to Ad Age . “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad ways people express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video and we’re sorry.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.
What was wrong with the new Apple iPad Pro ad?
Some took literally the way Apple had destroyed creativity tools and art forms – a notion that many thought Apple should have been sensitive to.
“The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley”, actor Hugh Grant published on X.
The ad “turned my stomach. Then it made me incredibly angry. Then I was just sad,” Shelly Palmer, a technology/media/marketing consultant and professor of advanced media in residence at the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, wrote in its newsletter and blog Friday.
Despite the ad’s supposed intent “to demonstrate how all the tools we use to create and consume art and music are combined to create an iPad,” Palmer said. “To me, this is a horrible statement about how Apple thinks about the creative community.”
To Cook, he said: “I’m asking you directly: Is this what you think about the creative community? Is your goal to crush us? To crush the life of our instruments? To literally crush our souls? “
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Nick Anderson posted a drawing of an emoji depicting crushed creatives on X.
In a column, Hollywood Reporter editor Julian Sancton wrote: “You can imagine the speech: ‘All of human creation compressed into one incredibly sleek tablet.’ But the end result is more like: “All of human creation sacrificed for a lifeless gadget.”
Sancton, who is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit alleging copyright infringement by OpenAI and Microsoft, added: “Indeed, in an era of bipartisan skepticism about technology and its destructive effects on society – and, in the case of generative AI, its complete disregard for human creators – it seems designed to offend as many people as possible. »
Garr Reynolds, professor of management and communication design at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan, and author of Presentation Zen, made this comparison on X: “This new iPad ad is to Apple ads what was the “Star Wars Holiday Special” from 1978. to Star Wars. Throw this iPad ad in the trash and let’s never talk about it again. Alternatively, re-edit it, removing the first 57 seconds: the last 3 seconds were great.
Not everyone was indifferent to the publicity. “I can both think the new iPad Pro ad was a big dud AND think Twitter’s reactions are downright stupid,” wrote Jack Appleby, author of the Future Social newsletter on social media strategy, on X.
“Yeah, it’s bad publicity,” he continued. “But you all understand the appeal of publicity. And what’s worse? None of you could do your job without these Apple products.”
Contributor: Reuters.
Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.
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