Nothing like a commercial that say's we're going to make you a slave to our device and take away every human passion and pursuit of excellence. Brilliant strategy, wait nope... you're not supposed to let them know where the dark patterns lead.
Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
691–700 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#692I think the part that was really upsetting is they crushed real good objects. After all of that talks about climate friendly. They could have crushed 3D renderings and up the clip with “rendered on iPad. No harm was done on real objects.” And that would have been a good ad.
It's almost certainly mostly CGI but even if it was done with practical props, they are still not "real good objects." They are props. No one crashes real Ferraris in an action movie. You use fakes and empty chassis.
They do crash real cars in movies though. The Wolf of Wall Street saw an actual Lamborghini Countach with a VIN get crashed quite a lot, John Carpenter's Christine went through like twenty Plymouths and The Dukes of Hazzard TV series destroyed hundreds of cars ("an estimated 309 Chargers were used").
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#693I didn't like the ad. I think the people creating it wanted to imply that it's as if they took all these things and put it in an iPad, where you can still achieve all the creativity while carrying a thin device. I don't think it's impossible to convey that message without destroying instruments and creative tools that are precious to so many. Maybe if they had made the animation very fast it would've appeared as a jo…
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Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#694Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not Japanese and it was upsetting to me Not because eg one piano got destroyed; surely that happens all the time, even on camera for eg movies and such. But there was something about watching beautiful objects be destroyed, in slow motion, gratuitously, and with an upbeat/sunny tone, that just aesthetically made me squirm in my seat
I haven’t seen anyone mention this yet, but I think the concept here was inspired by all the viral hydraulic press videos on Instagram and TikTok. Here’s a similar video showing random objects and consumer products being crushed in slow motion with similar upbeat music: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q9BtYEnrkg4
Sure, maybe that was the intent. But most of the objects I see in the linked video are cheap and mass-produced (a water bottle, some sticky notes, some plastic toys), which makes it feel totally different
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#695Just on the meta-discussion of "who cares about dissecting some ad": It's alright to consider implied meaning in media IMO. Just because it's misinterpreted by the standards of what the ad team wanted to accomplish, doesn't mean it WASN'T interpreted by people. Maybe "outrage" is a bit useless if it's only there for screaming at people online, but talking about how crushing things that people love sends the wrong mes…
As easy as it is to interpret it as "fuck your cherished things! get indoctrinated by tech" It is just because tech's true colors have really exposed themselves as of late to be money grubbing criminals to the extreme. It is inevitable that any corporation of sufficient size (only acheivable by evil) will stop being able to be "cute" advertising anymore
I could imagine some other ways of making this spot that I think would've changed the mood but still be cute. At a certain level of evil though, you have to poke at yourself.
Imagine some big team of apple engineers running around music halls and art galleries with notepads (or iPads with an apple pencil), taking notes on everything they see.
Cut back to factory, everyone is working on some comically Apple version of an artistic instrument. I'd absolutely get a laugh out of a big metal and glass piano or a solid aluminium canvas. These are obviously... framed as not ideal. Followed up by one of them frustratedly scrolling around on their iPhone in the break room, realizing lots of posts say "made on procreate on my iPad" or "garageband on iPad". Running back to the factory setting, hurriedly throwing everything in the crusher. Smush. New thin iPad.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#696It should have been going into the iPad, and then inside the iPad an expansive wonderland filled with all these great things. Opening, increasing, expanding.
They did the exact opposite lol. They smooshed into a smaller thing; decreasing, narrowing, reducing.
I think that may be their target demographic though. People who love apple want minimal, simple, less. So maybe it was genius after all. And they get free publicity because it’s controversial. Apple buyers will still buy the product. They want smooshed technology, or they’d be on Linux or Winblows.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#697The ad was strangely on brand for the process-centric parts of Apple that Steve Jobs oft lamented.
If the biggest feature is the form-factor, than your team now has two problems.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#698The controversy is on purpose. The apology was planned. You're all giving them extra bang for the advertising buck.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#699It's a great ad. 620 comments on hacker news, got me to watch it voluntarily even though I never see ads. Even got me to share it with someone else. Ads don't exist to make you feel good, they exist to make you notice them.
Except that it makes some of the most relevant Apple customers see them as an enemy that is out to crush their dreams... and are sharing it so their friends get the memo and feel the same way.
Re: Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
#700My initial reaction to the ad, upon watching it in the launch event was "huh, that's a fun reference to the Hydraulic Press Channel". The slapstick elements (trumpet noise, squishy balls) made it come across as light-hearted, rather than an ominous display of force by a large company crushing artists' tools. This idea of 'squashing all these tools down to a thin slab of glass' made sense given their somewhat unusual…
I think the big thing here is that if you don't have an attachment to any of the items being crushed you probably don't feel as strongly. If you're a trumpet player, seeing a trumpet being crushed is going to be a bit distressing. If you're a photographer, you're putting a monetary value on those lenses being destroyed. If you're into old arcade machines, you're thinking about how many of those cabinets are left in t…
I don’t think it is healthy if you are emotionally distressed seeing a trumpet being crushed.