Personally, I thought the ad was great and even after reading about several explanations as to why it's upsetting to some people, I don't get it.
Here's my take: Working musicians like me are so careful to protect and respect our instruments. They're connected to us and fairly fragile (my century-old violin is at its root a wooden box that could be easily destroyed). Seeing those instruments crushed in this ad was upsetting – not traumatizing – and, more important, did not make me want to buy one of these iPads. There are other ways to get the same point across, like having these objects CGI-sucked into a circuit board. Good for Apple simply to admit this ad misfired and move on.
Can you explain further why CGI instruments being compressed into the iPad was upsetting at all? I find the killing of puppies and murder wrong, but I didn't get upset when watching John Wick. At least with Apple's ad the intent was that the instruments ended up in the iPad whereas with John Wick the puppy was simply dead.
It’s because of what they represent and are meant to show: musical instruments and people being crushed. If they had shown these as stylized objects it would have been OK.
Seeing the face being crushed made me think of the people’s lives being destroyed who worked making Apple products. Of course that was in the past. Or was it. . . ?
Personally, I thought the ad was great and even after reading about several explanations as to why it's upsetting to some people, I don't get it.
Here's my take: Working musicians like me are so careful to protect and respect our instruments. They're connected to us and fairly fragile (my century-old violin is at its root a wooden box that could be easily destroyed). Seeing those instruments crushed in this ad was upsetting – not traumatizing – and, more important, did not make me want to buy one of these iPads. There are other ways to get the same point across, like having these objects CGI-sucked into a circuit board. Good for Apple simply to admit this ad misfired and move on.
Interesting suggestion. The visual presentation that shows all of these stuffs are “compressed” into iPad Pro just doesn’t convey the message but it did grab my attention though.
Lots of snowflakes here masquerading as people who weren’t offended by this terrible ad. It’s terrible because it offended creative people and their tools, who seemed to be the target of this ad. That’s all you need to know. If you weren’t offended, good for you. Do you know what that means? It means that you weren’t offended. Do you know what it doesn’t mean? It doesn’t mean that others didn’t have the right to be offended. How dare they have the audacity of not liking something?
It’s not just about the feelings of creators; why would anyone celebrate the destruction of wonderful analogue tools, often themselves pieces of art and exquisite craftsmanship? If anything, the ad makes one NOT want to get an iPad and buy a canvas and oil paints instead.
No one was ‘celebrating’ the destruction of instruments. It’s a very clever advert to show what you can do on an iPad. Apple were very weak to apologise.
I hold a BFA in painting, and Apple's "Crush it" advertisement wasn't new or original. What about Marcel Duchamp's "L.H.O.O.Q" created over 100 years ago? What about Niki de Saint-Phalle who rendered large scale paintings, drove them out into corn fields before an audience, and cut through them with a double barrel shotgun? What about all of the Post WWII anti-pictorial painters who showed their contempt against classical paintings, and the flat, two dimensional picture plane, because the Nazi's used them as propaganda to advance their cause? More, what about the Japanese Gutai Movement's reaction to Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Get real so-called "creatives". Apple's destruction of a still life, and expressing its contempt against traditional image making technologies was exactly what it needed to do to make its point, and sell it too. The new iPad Pro is capable of creating images more efficiently, and color saturated, than any traditional technology that preceded it. Finally, traditional mediums are d.e.a.d., and don't sell.
Personally, I thought the ad was great and even after reading about several explanations as to why it's upsetting to some people, I don't get it.
Here's my take: Working musicians like me are so careful to protect and respect our instruments. They're connected to us and fairly fragile (my century-old violin is at its root a wooden box that could be easily destroyed). Seeing those instruments crushed in this ad was upsetting – not traumatizing – and, more important, did not make me want to buy one of these iPads. There are other ways to get the same point across, like having these objects CGI-sucked into a circuit board. Good for Apple simply to admit this ad misfired and move on.
But you're fine with grounding up cows to make your burger.
I can see how the interpretation is destroying previous things, but I think the interpretation should or could be all of those things being put into a single device. Perhaps a better visual would be all those things being sucked into a box like a wormhole in a non-destructive way, and out comes the iPad.
OR — Another marketing creative 16 years later just happened to have the obvious idea that a super-slim device embodies so many discrete devices in one, and a press turns thick objects into something so thin?
I think this ad was great, but I do understand how people could feel. I feel crushed when I see those blend and drop tests of brand new Apple devices.
The real concern is that the advert appears to have been rather heavily “inspired” by a 2008 LG advert. Someone at Apple’s Ad Agency is going to get their butt kicked. Hard.
There you have it. Kleenex stock takes a dive and no more wet pillows.
As an engineer I would not be personally offended in the least if they showed a slide rule, HP41 calculator, pocket computer, or Swiss made 0.5 mm mechanical pencil in its pocket protector being virtually crushed into the iPad Pro. But that’s just me, your cyber-silliness and triggering mechanisms may differ from mine. I wonder how these folks dealt with the Road Runner vs Coyote cartoons from way back. The Coyotes’s head being flattened by an anvil. OMG. Call animal control and the cartoon network immediately.
I suppose Apple could have conveyed the same concept using an animated funnel showing all of these precious things being squeezed (using CGI) into a thin slab that is the iPad Pro.
I don’t really understand the outrage but I do agree. The ad is creepy. Beyond that, it’s aesthetically just very un-Apple. It’s dark and gray. Visually and in terms of mood. Apple has had amazing advertising for 40 years. Their ads are typically uplifting, sleek, cool, etc. I will say I thought it was a good apology. Not overdone. Not a non-apology apology.“this is what we stand for, this is what we do, and on this one we screwed up. We’re sorry.”
Lots of snowflakes here masquerading as people who weren’t offended by this terrible ad. It’s terrible because it offended creative people and their tools, who seemed to be the target of this ad. That’s all you need to know. If you weren’t offended, good for you. Do you know what that means? It means that you weren’t offended. Do you know what it doesn’t mean? It doesn’t mean that others didn’t have the right to be offended. How dare they have the audacity of not liking something?
I can understand if people don’t like it but people who take offense are apparently easily offended. The bigger point is that too many people are easily offended and the rest of us lose out when organizations give into the woke minority as it is impossible to please everyone. As if Apple intended to offend anyone - a ridiculous idea. What the woke don’t get is that individuals and society at large are better when people are thicker skinned and not searching for ways to identify themselves as victims of unintended affronts.
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Apple Ads used to be good and creative, but due to cost cutting that needs to suffer as well.
Perhaps a better visual would be all those things being sucked into a box like a wormhole in a non-destructive way, and out comes the iPad.
I think this ad was great, but I do understand how people could feel. I feel crushed when I see those blend and drop tests of brand new Apple devices.
As an engineer I would not be personally offended in the least if they showed a slide rule, HP41 calculator, pocket computer, or Swiss made 0.5 mm mechanical pencil in its pocket protector being virtually crushed into the iPad Pro. But that’s just me, your cyber-silliness and triggering mechanisms may differ from mine. I wonder how these folks dealt with the Road Runner vs Coyote cartoons from way back. The Coyotes’s head being flattened by an anvil. OMG. Call animal control and the cartoon network immediately.
I suppose Apple could have conveyed the same concept using an animated funnel showing all of these precious things being squeezed (using CGI) into a thin slab that is the iPad Pro.