Is all media good media, or is Apple’s latest iPad ad (which touches on a different type of media) an ill-timed misstep that could actually cost Apple its AI-weary creative staff?
Because now, creatives are voicing their disgust as their tools are gleefully destroyed in hydraulic presses to make way for shiny new tablets. It might just be the wrong message at the wrong time.
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That some ads are annoying is nothing new, and we all know that annoying ads are not necessarily ineffective. When I was 12, there were some burger commercials where people were loudly stuffing burgers into their ugly, close-up mouths and then sucking on their fingers like animals. The whole thing makes me want to claw my eyes out. (I later learned that they actually made a lot of people feel that way.) But as my dad explained to me at the time, “The point is, they get your attention.”
I heard the underlying message loud and clear: Companies don’t have to pretend to respect their customers; They just need to make them give up their money.
It’s entirely possible that Apple lets customers do this. Yesterday, my colleague Chris Taylor pointed out that the top-of-the-line new iPad with all the peripherals is worth a total of $3,000, and whether the price is shocking or not, people will be tempted to spend money on something so cool. But he also made a point that was central to his value proposition: The new iPad fueled his fantasy of personal creativity. “Apple knows that our income will always be more disposable if it attracts the geniuses we want to be,” he wrote.
With this in mind, I highly recommend you watch the Crush ad again and really think about what it’s showing you:
All these things—the paint, the piano, the trumpet, the arcade machine, the illustrator’s desk—are you hostile to them? Would you like to see it destroyed and symbolically turned into an Apple device? Would you be satisfied to see record players destroyed and cameras all crushed, shattered, and exploded?
Mix and match speed of light
To change things up a bit, look at your most recent Apple device and think about the last time you fantasized about that thing getting crushed. Was it yesterday? Maybe five minutes ago. Regardless, you may not like it as much as you like the guitar.
Almost exactly 40 years ago, Apple released its most famous ad, “1984,” in which a monochromatic society of rickety drones is bewitched by some kind of computerized dictator. The prisoners of this horrific society are then liberated from monotony by a hammer-throwing savior represented by the Macintosh computer, and a glorious, colorful future is unleashed.
Fast forward 40 years, and Apple, the most valuable company in the world, released an ad in which symbols of creativity, color, joy, human passion and fun were stacked in the center of a gray concrete space and crushed by industrialized factories.
The message didn’t play well.
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And the timing couldn’t be worse. Apple is finally pleasing Wall Street by turning to artificial intelligence — even accelerating the development of a new AI cloud infrastructure project made up of its own proprietary chips.As Apple CEO Tim Cook said on an earnings call last week, Apple “believes[s] The transformative power and promise of artificial intelligence, and we believe we have the advantages that will make us stand out in this new era.
To that end, the word “AI” was used more times at yesterday’s iPad event than any Apple product demo in recent memory. AI enhancements are suddenly being injected into Apple’s creative tools, such as Photomator and its ML enhancement tools, as well as the new “Isolate Theme” option in Final Cut Pro.
There are no two ways about it: Apple is now an artificial intelligence company. In this ad, Apple appears to be delivering this message through a speaker, which may be a little louder than it intended. The public who have watched Smash seems to be slowly coming to terms with this chilling new reality.
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In the same year, Apple released the “1984” commercial, a short movie called “1984” Terminator debut, Apple folks might want to take another look at it — or at least (spoiler alert) its final moments. Its core is, Terminator This is a love story about the victory of human nature over artificial intelligence. Was it a concept of love that James Cameron put in a hydraulic press in the finale? Is it creativity? joy? enthusiasm? No. Terminator It’s the moment when the terrible artificial intelligence machines are overwhelmed.
That is People always want to see acts of creative destruction, and if you’re a tech company right now, it’s probably a good idea to keep that in mind.
