Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/9/24153113/apple-ipad-ad-crushing-apologyIt didn’t! It is a good clip.
It accurately shows how tools are being replaced with digital and cloud. It’s a violent process and precious things get destroyed along the way. It totally hit the mark.
But true, it doesn’t make people want to go grab an ipad, so I get why they don’t want to use it.
No it doesn't.
Throwing away all other sentiments, I really would like to see a 100lb digital piano replacing a 500lb upright piano while keeping its action, feel and sound, if not a grand piano. That hasn't happened yet, not even remotely, after all these years of technology advancenent. Anyone who is serious in learning and performing piano would be doing that on a real piano. And of course iPad isn't even in the conversation -- what can you do with a touch screen?
Which is exactly why I find this ad ridiculous.
No it doesnt, it shows thats what Apple thinks which is the whole problem here.
You might not like what the industry is doing but don't kill the messenger: they just gave you a short glimpse behind the curtain. The company will keep the same goals even after they give their ad team sensitivity training.
A classic arcade game experience is not going to be reproducible with a subscription to Apple Arcade. A stradivarius violin is not going to be replaced by Apple Logic Pro.
If you move the mark, and replace this mark with your mark, then, whatever. Your answer will be always right if you change the question.
So, yes. It did miss the mark.
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 joke and not something intended to be taken literally.
Also could've had some artist exit a studio, take the iPad, do a whole bunch of stuff, then go back to the studio and kind of test out/use the tools while reading from the iPad or something like that.
I know some people are saying the reaction is too strong, but trust me if you practice on a piano daily you will not feel good watching it get crushed.
I don't even work in marketing or own any Apple devices.
The problem is that you can't squeeze an object without resorting to animation. So instead they went for crushing, which carries destructive undertones. A lot of people have strong emotional attachments to objects like pianos and vinyl players; destroying them is a powerful trigger.
If this had been done with animation, with some djinn magically squeezing everything into an iPad, it would have been just fine.
This said, there is no such thing as bad publicity - here we are, talking about the umpteenth version of a product we would otherwise take for granted. The ad might have been distasteful but it did the job.
Furthermore I doubt that anyone on HN (except like 2 people who will definitely reply to this comment) who didn’t know about the new iPad Pro before this commericial learned about it from this post.
I agree, though. Although I only learned of the product because of the outrage over the ad, it certainly hasn't moved me toward wanting to purchase one. And I'll actually be in the market for a tablet in a few months.
the phrase "there's no such thing as bad PR" is meant to make you realize that there's more to PR than you... realize. It's in the style of something like a Buddhist koan. it's not meant to be taken literally or to an extreme. It's not a proof but it does describe a real phenomenon. You can't reject the phrase without rejecting its wisdom.
I hope, on that hill, you don't die as you plan to. Because you are very literal, aren't you.
I think the phrase has outlived its usefulness. Nowadays when I see it used it’s often in exactly the kind of extreme or overly literal way you yourself criticize.
It's not saying literally that no publicity can ever be bad. That's obviously not true and is easily disproven nearly every single day by current events. It's a broader conveyance of truth regarding the difficulty of getting noticed in a world crowded with content. Even if it's "bad publicity" there are still benefits of becoming more well known, for example. Apple is one of the few companies where that probably won't help, but it doesn't "disprove" the saying and mean we should reject it.
My 2c: when that addage was first coined, public outrage was much harder to mobilize.
Social media and globalization work hand in hand to make it easier for people to have an outsized impact.
Two recent instances I can think of: Budweiser and US campus protests regarding the war in Gaza.
After putting $85-110M into the production of the movie, Universal released a trailer that went super viral and had every person on the internet talking about how terrible it looked. When the movie actually came out there was a second viral wave of gawking. Did this drive tons of people to the theater so they revel in the movie’s epic badness for themselves? No, the movie (which had over a dozen stars and was based on a hit musical that is popular around the world) failed to make back its budget at the box office. For reference (in case someone tries to pull the “maybe it would’ve made less money without the negative publicity” card) Tom Hooper’s previous movie musical Les Miserables earned $442M on a $61M budget.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_(2019_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables_(2012_film...
I wouldn't have paid any attention to a new iPad launch or known that it was the thinnest one yet, without this 'bad' press.
If anything, I'd say I'd be more likely to purchase a new iPad as a result
Like saying that using the color red makes people think of a stop sign, so they won't buy your product.
Apple ad isn’t controversial because people react indifferent at best and very negative at worst. Everyone already knows what an ipad is.
Mission accomplished.
There is really no such thing as bad publicity.
Number of people who will stop buying Apple products due to this Ad : ZERO
Number of people who are aware of iPad Thin due to controversy : > ZERO
A small number of people shit on Apple/Google/Meta/Amazon all the time for every little thing
Edit : HN crowd downvoting a marketing concept. I must be right!
Although it no doubt produced tons of brand awareness among people who had never heard of them, I doubt that the folks at Humane AI would argue that the recent flood of bad reviews or even the backlash against the bad reviews were helpful to them in the long term. Like sure, tons of people know about them now, perhaps they even sold a pin or two to the folks who heard about them through the controversy. But there’s a good chance they may not be able to stay solvent as a company long enough to actually capitalize on their increased brand recognition.
I was looking at ipads, but this ad and the comments have reminded me why I dont like putting money in Apples pockets. So I shall definitely be buying android when I buy one.
This is false, not least because this is something companies declare on financial reports.
EDIT: I appreciate the amount of good-faith discussion on this comment. To be clear, if your reaction to the ad was along the lines of ‘this is distasteful and I don’t like it’, I totally get that. I’m referring to some of the comments I saw that likened it to ‘stress inducing’ or ‘like watching someone’s arm get cut off’ which are much more emotive.
I get through regular life okay, but this a $1T company with hundreds of billions in cash, profit driven, using child labor in China indirectly, and engaging in walled-garden policies makes it worse.
They make all these gadgets that replaces incomes from many manufactures and puts it on a single hand. That's bad enough.
Now, they destroy all these beautiful things- a piano, a guitar, a camera, and a lot of valuable things to make a point that this single silicon-made, soulless corporate company-produced, cheap exploited labor induced thing is going to replace them. Those things of aesthetics and soul are destroyed to give rise to this thing.
That hits hard for me. Seriously. I thought that I was being a real snowflake when this ad made me uncomfortable, but was glad to see this backlash in large numbers. Maybe people still have souls.
You can give a thousand lessons in "nature of real circumstances and geopolitics", and this ad with all its backstory will still be wrong to me.
I agree with everything you say except for this part: not having an emotional reaction to the destruction of objects doesn't imply you don't have a soul (whatever that means to you). Not everybody had the opportunity in life to learn to play an instrument or make art, and I can see how for people like this a music instrument is not more sentimental than, say, a hammer.
Maybe you should feel good about feeling bad after watching that ad: it means you had the chance to experience the beauty of creating art.
One aspect could bae related the affordability of things. Imagine that beautiful grand piano - how many would have dreamt of owning one in their homes but can’t. Because:
a) they are expensive
b) need a lot of space (so you need to have a big home to begin with)
Seeing a lot of new things being destroyed, along with the stress all emoji’s eyes popping out, was a bit much.
source: 2023 10k
But sure, I can see why people don't like it.
Or do you carry a bag with a camera, a dumb phone, a notepad w/ pens and markers, books, an mp3 player, a pedometer, a measuring tape, ...
No one's forcing you to buy the former, so, why don't you do the latter?
What exactly are you trying to achieve with this sentence?
Whilst I didn't feel a great deal watching the video, this statement is very presumptive.
Reversed: How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so strongly about things?
Should perhaps we, those who didn't feel a great deal here, not reflect on whether we might be feeling as much of life as we could, empathise more deeply, care about broader things, consider life as more than ration or reason?
It didn't bother me one way or another, but I also didn't assume anything. I can imagine a life far more rich just by feeling more, seeing more colours in the same palette, tasting more when eating food, and feeling so much more when just experiencing life... perhaps for all the benefit of feeling more, there's just the sharper edge that sometimes you feel more about something like an Apple advert.