Apple, a company famous in large part for its effective and stylish marketing, crushed it with its newest ad — literally, but not metaphorically.
To promote its new, ultra-thin iPads, the tech giant on Tuesday released an ad in which an industrial press crushes an array of creative objects to birth a new iPad.
The iPad Pro ad features some of art’s greatest tools — books, paint cans, statues, musical instruments including a piano, an old-model TV, an arcade game machine — getting pulverized into oblivion to the cheery tune of Sonny & Cher’s “All I Ever Need Is You.”
"Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create," Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote on X on Tuesday in a post with video of the commercial.
Though the company is usually praised for its clever marketing, many people on social media were quick to criticize the commercial, calling it “destructive” and saying it is “crushing symbols of human creativity and cultural achievements to appeal to pro creators.”
A spokesperson for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday regarding the backlash.
Cook's post on X had amassed 19.3 million views as of Wednesday. Much of the engagement came from replies and reposts with commentary from users, some who went as far as telling Apple it should pull the ad and recut it.
“This ad is (unintentional) perfect metaphor for today’s creative dark age: compress organic instruments, joyful/imperfect machines, tangible art, our entire physical reality into a soulless, postmodern, read-only device a multi-trillion $ corporation controls what you do with,” Adam Singer, the vice president of marketing at advertising technology company AdQuick, posted on X.
"Can’t believe Apple ran such an out of touch commercial that treats devices Steve Jobs would have cherished as trash," Eric Newcomer, who runs a tech-focused newsletter and events company, also posted on X.
One X user said the new ad is a "bookend" to the ad the company released in 1984 to unveil its first Macintosh computer. In that commercial, a woman dressed in bright orange shorts runs through an eerie scene out of George Orwell’s “1984” depicting rows of people dressed in gray watching propaganda on a screen. She throws an ax to break the screen, seemingly freeing them from their trance.
“1984: Monochome, conformist, industrial world exploded by colourful, vibrant human,” the user wrote. “2024: Colourful, vibrant humanity is crushed by monochrome, conformist industrial press.”
Apple remains a tech behemoth. While it has faced some challenges around declining iPhone sales, it remains among the most profitable companies in the world.
But it has faced some questions about where it's headed. The company's newest product, the Apple Vision Pro, has underperformed the company's expectations.
The new iPads, released Tuesday, feature a new Apple chip and a new display in addition to their extreme thinness. iPad sales make up a small part of the company's overall revenue.