Crushed musical instruments in an advertising clip – that doesn’t go down well with many viewers. Now the company is rowing back.
Apple has hit a nerve with an advertising clip for its new iPad model – just not in the way the company might have hoped. The video was intended to spectacularly highlight the diverse capabilities of the more powerful Pro model of the tablet range:
Musical instruments such as a trumpet and a piano as well as paint pots, cameras, a sculpture and a video game machine are crushed in a gigantic press. Then the press opens again – and there is an iPad inside.
“Destruction of the human experience”
However, many viewers were outraged by the destruction, even if it appeared to be computer-generated. Criticism spread in online networks that the video crushed tools of creativity. Actor Hugh Grant complained on the online platform X about Silicon Valley's “destruction of the human experience”.
Apple apologized and said it would refrain from broadcasting the commercial on television. It is important for the company to design products for creative people, Apple manager Tor Myhren told the advertising magazine “Ad Age”. “We missed the mark with this video and we are sorry.”
CEO Tim Cook published the video on Tuesday to present the new iPad models on X and wrote, among other things: “Imagine all the things it will be used to create.”
