Apple gets crushing backlash to its 'gross' iPad ad from celebrities and artists

From its pop-art iPod com‐ mercials to its celebrity-led Mac vs. PC campaign, Apple hasn't had many market‐ ing missteps to its name.

But a controversial ad for the company's latest iPad model has critics railing against the tech giant for what they say is a slight against artists and the cre‐ ative community - a de‐ mographic once drawn to Ap‐ ple products.

The ad, titled "Crush!", shows an array of creative objects - among them musi‐ cal instruments, art sculp‐ tures, typewriters, a record table and a vintage arcade machine - being slowly pul‐ verized by a hydraulic press.

(You know, the thing that David Letterman frequently used to crush bowling balls for fun. Similar videos now dominate TikTok feeds every‐ where.)

Once the press has de‐ molished the spread, it re‐ leases, and a glimmering new iPad appears, having re‐ placed - or made obsolete everything that came before it. All I Ever Need Is You by Sonny and Cher rings out.

WATCH | The Apple ad upsetting artists:

The spot went viral as crit‐ ics denounced its message. Some found it particularly hard to stomach the imagery of big tech crushing creative tools as artists grapple with the threats posed by artificial intelligence.

"This new ad by Apple perfectly depicts what Big Tech has sadly come to stand for: crushing human creativ‐ ity in the name of technologi‐ cal innovation and selling it to us as progress," one X user wrote.

"It's tone-deaf at least, malicious at worst, in the cur‐ rent climate of [AI] replacing human arts."

Krista Ball, an author in Edmonton who is also an Ap‐ ple shareholder, said she watched the commercial and had a "visceral, gross reac‐ tion - almost the same way as you feel when you see a political ad that's really gross."

"The iPad does not re‐ place the tools of pen and paper," Ball said in an inter‐ view with CBC News. "Apple has always had this reputa‐ tion of trying to work with art, to expand art, so to liter‐ ally destroy art to say 'we're better,' that is not appealing to artists."

Apple has long been known for developing tech‐ nology that complements creative work - ranging from user-friendly tools like iMovie and GarageBand for editing film and audio, to profession‐ al tools such as Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro.

In a social media post in‐ troducing the commercial, Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed to echo that message, writing of the new iPad, "Just imag‐ ine all the things it'll be used to create."

But British actor Hugh Grant saw things differently. "The destruction of the hu‐ man experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley," Grant wrote in response to Cook's post. American actress Justine Bateman put it bluntly, ask‐ ing Cook: "Truly, what is wrong with you?"

After two days of criticism, Apple reportedly apologized for the video, according to U.S. trade publications Ad Ageand Variety. CBC News has reached out to Apple to confirm the apology, but the company did not respond.

Recalls famous 1984 commercial

For many critics, the new Ap‐ ple ad conjured unfavourable parallels to the tech compa‐ ny's famous 1984 ad by Blade Runner director Ridley Scott, which depicted a dystopian society ruled by a Big Brother-esque figure.

As the ruler speaks from a television to his entranced followers, a woman bounds toward the screen and smashes it with a sledgeham‐ mer.

"On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Mac‐ Intosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984," a voiceover declared, referenc‐ ing George Orwell's classic novel.

WATCH | Ridley Scott's classic 1984 Apple commerci‐ al:

AnneMarie Dorland, an assistant professor of mar‐ keting at Mount Royal Uni‐ versity in Calgary, said that the 1984 ad "taught people to feel that Apple was some‐ thing rebellious."

The company's signature Mac Computer was "different than the status quo or what you expected or what you al‐ ready had," she said.

That vision of a new world is still present in the latest commercial, Dorland said but the messaging around the commercial, including its title "Crush!", was "perhaps a misguided way of talking about it."

It did bring attention to what would have otherwise been an underwhelming up‐ date to one of the company's flagship products, she added. "We're all still talking about the introduction of a slightly smaller iPad. So despite the controversy, it's working."

She noted that Apple just might be trying to reach a new audience "who are get‐ ting access to some level of joy and creativity for the first time with some of these tools. So you could really make the argument, maybe, that Apple is just going after a new generation."

Is Apple's reputation shifting?

Thom Binding, a marketing strategist in London, said he had a positive reaction to the ad - but noted that the wider negative reaction to it speaks to how Apple's reputation has shifted.

"I think that in itself is quite alarming for Apple be‐ cause they have shaped the brand around appealing to creatives," said Binding.

"Apple is sort of losing its relevance or its position with‐ in the culture and [with] cre‐ ative people," Binding said. "And that's something that's happening right now. It's something that's been going on probably in the last 10 years."

He pointed to Apple's dominance in the tech indus‐ try and its recent run-ins with antitrust regulators, including a lawsuit by the U.S. Depart‐ ment of Justice that accuses Apple of engineering a mo‐ nopoly in the smartphone market.

"There is sort of an evolv‐ ing sense that Apple's the bad guy, and it's not the friendly kind of creative, re‐ bellious brand that we all re‐ member it being," said Bind‐ ing.