After getting a lot of people very angry, Apple apologizes for the new ad and says it's scrapping its plan to air a 1-minute spot on TV.
The ad, called "Crash," is intended to highlight the thinness of Apple's new iPad Pro, which features a pile of media devices such as cameras, pianos and paint cans and art-making tools, crushed into thin film by mercilessly descending metal plates.
The ad appears to have been partly inspired by videos of hydraulic presses crushing everyday objects popular on video platforms like tiktok.It would have worked better if the woman doing the hydraulic press reaction video had said "absolutely stop" in the corner, but I'm worried that Iris P will not be seen anywhere.
The video was tweeted by Apple CEO Tim Cook on Tuesday and was immediately widely publicized. Many believe that the destruction of musical instruments and art supplies is Apple's true ambition to optimize art into a smooth, colorless paste, or perhaps an ode to anti-creative forces like generated AI.
My favorite objection to advertising came from Yanis Varoufakis, a former Greek finance minister who, like some of the writing, worked for Valve for some time. Sounding like an RPG character urging the protagonist to take action, Varoufakis wrote in X: "Tim Cook just crushed all of the cultural values in his quest for power It's time for humanity to reprimand him. Boycott this rotten apple. Starting with the new iPad, its birth was chosen by Cook to announce in this grotesque way.
(Varoufakis happens to have a new book called Techno-feudalism: What killed capitalism, if you want to elaborate on the idea.)
Personally, I think in this example, Apple meant to show that the iPad Pro was thin, and for some reason people couldn't smash what they liked. But whether it's a simple blunder or a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes "Saturn devours son" vibe at apple, the ad is now toast.
"Creativity is in Apple's DNA, and designing products that empower creatives around the world is very important to us," Tor Myhren, VP of apple marketing communications, told Ad Age. "Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users can express themselves and bring their ideas to life through the iPad. We missed the mark in this video, and we are sorry.
According to the age of the ad, the ad will not air on TV as previously planned.
Aside from making computers that can't be repaired, Apple has gained a reputation for running iconic ads, including the famous Ridley Scott's "1984" ad, dancing iPod silhouettes, and the Mac vs. PC campaign. Here's another on the list, and it goes down as something more notorious than the famous one, but if you were wondering I don't know the new iPad Pro is thin, it's 5.1mm.
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