Missing from this extremely short and underreported article is how badly this played out in Japanese market. The culture they have states that musical instruments, creative tools have some energy and imbued sense of spirit to them. So destroying these elements of culture is really really blunt and gauche to them. The majority of the push back came from Japanese people, and then artists empathizing with their sentimen…
I’ve seen a few comments about this. Is there any English page that documents this in more detail? I find it really interesting.
Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
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Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#112It's a bit insane to me that Apple felt the need to "apologize"... so they made a crappy AD that didn't appeal to some audiences... is this really grounds for retractions/apologies these days?
Any publicity is good publicity. "Some people find advert offensive" isn't a story. "Apple apologises for advert" is.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#113Aside from the destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people aspect, tonally the ad was also overly edgy, which is off-brand for Apple. As noted elsewhere, it felt like a video game commercial from the '90s: gratuitous in its attention-seeking. https://twitter.com/cuniiform/status/1788013085392859171 And it's actually already been done before, by Nintendo: https://twitter.com/rsnous/status/1788047…
1984 was edgy for its time. I think the difficulty is that the iPad is no longer an edgy product. The least edgy thing you could be these days is an iPad owner, and this ad wasn't the one to change that.
1984 [1] was edgy precisely because it worked as a criticism of society and culture, and then showed a way to 'break free' of mindless dystopia. This [2] ad is pretty much the exact and literal opposite. It essentially takes a sampling of the great things that culture and society has produced, destroys them, and then shows the Product, while literally singing "All I Ever Need Is You." Here [3] a guy basically reversed the ad, with the iPad being crushed, and then slowly lifting it up to have all the great stuff in society come out of it. And suddenly it's actually quite uplifting and positive!
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc
[3] - https://twitter.com/rezawrecktion/status/1788211832936861950
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#114It really exemplifies the culture change from Steve's obsession with the INTERSECTION of humanities and science. Silicon Valley on a mission
Steve Jobs would have probably fired whoever suggested this ad, at best. He always saw the Mac as an enabler of and conduit for peoples' creativity, not a replacement for other forms of it.
Jobs' death is truly tragic in the context that Apple - and by extension, the rest of the tech world - could have gone in a very different direction if he were still around. He would probably be screaming his head off at the idea of generative AI.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#115I’m struggling a bit to see why this ad is controversial.
It's the times we live in. People have just become overly sensitive it seems. Apple needs to apologize or risk a cancel culture backlash.
Apple has absolutely no issue capitalising on “woke” in their tv shows. Like, really going all in.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#1169to5Google pointed out that the Apple ad is a near exact copy of this LG ad from 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo The (accidental?) plagiarism of the ad is nearly as bad as the vibe.
Eh, It's a pretty obvious premise. I think it's reasonable for two creative teams to come up with the same unoriginal/uninteresting premise. The execution of the Apple version is also miles ahead.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
> destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people This was really poorly worded and sounded very elitist and dismissive, I trust this was not the intention.
On the contrary, I wish this was dismissive. It's about time that the Overton window gets shifted about the overly nostalgic articles that get praised by "the right people", which means we need to "read the room" and share the same opinions. It is an absolutely good thing that an inexpensive device is replacing an expensive one, and that impoverished children will be able to create music with an inexpensive iPad and…
Yeah, how dare people have emotional connections with musical instruments! The great (and very inexpensive) iPad will finally allow humans to become equals and set poor people free. Nostalgia is exactly what's wrong with this world.
Yes, this is very over the top, but the iPad is neither inexpensive (compared to your $50 garage sale guitar and synthie) nor is it sufficient to make music.
People enjoy music from instruments not only because someone was able to compose a song on it, but because the instrument carries emotion, there is sweat and pain in learning it, people become masters of their instruments and have actual connections to them. The iPad is a powerful device for making music, sure. But it's not exactly the device I would choose to allow impoverished children to create music. And I, personally, enjoy music more when I know it's actual people playing instruments rather than just a producer mixing some stuff and only recording the singing. Calling playing an instrument obsolete and "fingering" is insulting.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#118Related concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_no_aware
And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai I guess
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#119I thought the ad was great but to actually have to apologize for it ?? I am a self admitted Apple fanboy but while I don’t see eye to eye on this I really don’t see the offensiveness . But in the grand scheme of things it might sell more iPads due to the Streisand effect.
When I was a young'n, Apple was very big on treating artists and creatives as a set of people they were humbled to have stumbled into helping. Marketing was driven by ideas like avoiding "speeds and feeds", in the words of Steve, and emotionally connecting with users: ex. famous lore is an Apple ad is never "Buy the New Galaxy Plus Pro S6 with the 120 megapixel 240x Zoom!" it's "Soft tinkling music as smiling father…
> It's funny being old because the thing that confuses me is why people have reactions to reactions, ex. people saying "based, why should they have to apologize anyway, it wasn't offensive"...it clearly wasn't offensive in that sense!
Some people just really seem to object to the idea that anyone could ever experience an emotion and have it not be based on some kind of cold rationality.
The idea of feeling something in your gut, something visceral, is anathema to them.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people This was really poorly worded and sounded very elitist and dismissive, I trust this was not the intention.
On the contrary, I wish this was dismissive. It's about time that the Overton window gets shifted about the overly nostalgic articles that get praised by "the right people", which means we need to "read the room" and share the same opinions. It is an absolutely good thing that an inexpensive device is replacing an expensive one, and that impoverished children will be able to create music with an inexpensive iPad and…