Tech giant Apple is facing a furious adland backlash over its latest ad for the iPad Pro that sees a range of creative items being crushed by an oversized hydraulic press.
Developed by its own internal creative team, the 60-second spot – named Crush! – shows a variety of items such as paint pots, trombones and pianos being crushed and magically combined into the US brand’s new iPad Pro.
Soon after posting the clip to X, CEO Tim Cook’s tweet was bombarded with negative replies from the creative community, who considered the film to be an affront to human creativity.
I’m not sure ‘wanton destruction of all the good and beautiful things is this world’ was really the vibe you were trying for.
— Judd Baroff (@JuddBaroff) May 7, 2024
Subscribe to Marketing Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest marketing news sent straight to your inbox each morning
The clip has even drawn the ire of Hollywood star Hugh Grant, who described the ad as: “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley” on his personal X account.
The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley. https://t.co/273XB3CfnF
— Hugh Grant (@HackedOffHugh) May 8, 2024
Despite its overwhelmingly negative response from creative professionals, the ad has proved rather less controversial to the wider public according to System1 chief customer officer, Jon Evans. He said: “The reaction from the people who really matter, the general public rather than the pundits, was actually less negative than you might expect.
“There is clearly some negative emotion and the overall score is low as we expected but the over-riding emotion was neutrality.
“The other surprise since this is an Apple ad was how weak the branding was. That may end up being a good thing.”
