“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” said Tor Myhren, the company’s vice president of marketing communications, in a statement provided to the publication AdAge. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”
Mr. Myhren said Apple would no longer run the ad on TV.
The company had faced a barrage of criticism from designers, actors and artists who saw the ad as a metaphor for how Big Tech has cashed in on their work by crushing or co-opting the artistic tools that humanity has used for centuries....
By the way, there are so many pianos out there, and you cannot even give them away. You have to pay someone to cart it off and destroy it for you. People may hate to see destruction used for entertainment or product pushing, but many, many musical instruments get trashed unceremoniously.
It's rarely the case that a piano gives up the ghost in a glorious video. Who can forget "Close to the Edit" by Art of Noise?
In 1956, on the Lawrence Welk Show, a zoot-suited performer billed as "Rockin' Rocky Rockwell" did a mocking rendition of Elvis Presley's hit song "Hound Dog." At the conclusion of the song he smashed an acoustic guitar over his knee
Also:
Jerry Lee Lewis may be the first rock artist to have destroyed his equipment on stage, with several, possibly erroneous, stories of him destroying and burning pianos in the 1950s....
Famously, The Who and Jimi Hendrix destroyed guitars.
More elitely:
During the Festival of Misfits in 1962, Fluxus-artist Robin Page performed his event named "Guitar Piece." Page threw his guitar off stage and kicked it out of the ICA’s front door and down Dover Street until it broke totally apart.
And:
Nam June Paik's "One for Violin Solo", performed on 16 June 1962, featured Paik very slowly and intently lifting a violin, then smashing it with one blow on a table.
In London, 1966, a group of artists from around the world came together to participate in the first Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS).... During the course of the symposium, Raphael Montañez Ortiz performed a series of seven public destruction events, including his piano destruction concerts.... Two years later, New York City hosted the second Destruction in Art Symposium at Judson Church in Greenwich Village. The artists who gathered around this art movement and its development were opposed to the senseless destruction of human life and landscapes engendered by the Vietnam war....
Apple's ad fits in a long tradition of making a dramatic/comic spectacle out of destroying musical instruments. What ghastly prudes are out and about in social media these days? And what are these moral scolds creating (other than repression)?
Posts
60 comments:
People may hate to see destruction used for entertainment or product pushing, but many, many musical instruments get trashed unceremoniously.
Well yeah. Lots of books get dumped and incinerated as burnable trash, but it would send an . . unfortunate message for Amazon to celebrate book burnings to market the next Kindle.
I liked it.
I have had a exchange of text messages for the past two mornings in which I have tried to make the point that historically States have tried to create buffer zones of vassal states to strengthen their own security and to pushback against this in the name of "might does not make right" was an exercise in futility and a recipe for unnecessary conflict. My exhibit A was the failure of the administrations to push bac against the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 because we had no national interest at stake.
But when I see this type of nonsense I frequently think we need to lose a short hard war to knock some sense into this nation.
This is the dumbest outrage I’ve seen in the social media era. Computer animated objects crushed to show all the resources available in a thin electronic device. People truly have way too much time in their hands
Aren't videos of hydraulic presses crushing things ubiquitous?
There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect; compared with which, reproach, hatred, and opposition, are names of happiness.
Attributed to Samuel Johnson.
Quote Investigator
No babies?
Myhren said Apple would no longer run the ad on TV" = Apple has achieved its goal in making the ad viral, so paid TV ads are no longer needed.
When the feedback is negative, going viral is a bad thing so best to pull the ad. The way the above is worded makes the ad sound like a success.
I saw it and it seemed like a lot of chaos to me. It was not 'thin' nor 'sleek' nor Apple-like, a company that is known for minimalism in its design.
My Gen6 iPad is doing well and still updating. I can skip upgrading for a bit longer. Maybe Apple will interpret my indifference as revulsion and hire an ad agency with some brains rather than stale oatmeal, not that Tim Cook could ever tell the difference.
Kinda reminds me of the cash for clunkers video showing beautiful cars being shredded.
You weren’t going to make the money you did before they came along. Didn’t you know what the deal was before you signed on?
Apple has achieved its goal in making the ad viral, so paid TV ads are no longer needed.
Getting Away With It (acoustic)
I will pay you for your piano.
"And what are these moral scolds creating (other than repression)? "
Preservation.
By the way, there are so many pianos out there, and you cannot even give them away. You have to pay someone to cart it off and destroy it for you. People may hate to see destruction used for entertainment or product pushing, but many, many musical instruments get trashed unceremoniously.
Ah, that's not quite true. If the piano has ivory keys it is illegal to sell it. One can only repair it (may cost more than a brand new piano), give it away (if you can find someone who wants it), or pay someone to haul it away.
A commercial making it into editorials is as successful as it possibly can be.
I think it is a great advertisement. Do I feel bad that the iPad replaced my eight track tapes, my vinyl records, my VCR, and my television? No, I think my iPad is amazing. I think it should be celebrated.
There's a abundance of upright pianos.
People are paying good money to have them hauled away.
Brings to mind Obama and Biden working so hard on changing our country.
Not only was it a bad ad, it wasn't even original. They totally plagerized this LG phone ad from 2008.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1788428991118164356
I want one!
I don't know who they think they are, smashing a perfectly good guitar.
I thought it was kinda cool.
There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect; compared with which, reproach, hatred, and opposition, are names of happiness.
Attributed to Samuel Johnson.
I cannot let this disinformation stand. The quote is actually from the baseball great Randy Johnson after he purposefully timed a pitch to hit an innocent bird as it flew between him and the plate.
They're worried about Global Warming in a world full of snowflakes.
Trigger me harder, baby.
I liked the ad. I like to watch videos of hydraulic presses taking care of business. I liked the metaphor—compressing all that is creative and entertaining into this electronic device. Who needs all those material goods when you have an iPad.
The smiley face having its eyes squeezed out of its face was disturbing, especially as it was followed by the paint oozing out, like blood. Also the little toy that seemed to realize it was about to be killed.
I thought that it was a fine ad. But a stupid product. Probably to niche to be really sell that many. I have two iPad Pros, because I can use them without WiFi. Regular sized one uses an Otter Box case. Thinner would be a waste of money. I also have a large one in a lighter case. It’s my overnight iPad. I justified it so that my partner could watch her shows when we are traveling. She doesn’t. Too big for carrying it around. Thinner wouldn’t e better for me. And how many people need that sharp of a display? I’ll wait a couple years until the cost of te technology comes down.
The basic idea of the ad seems badly flawed. They want to demonstrate how much great stuff is packed into their device, but it’s all smashed to pieces by the time they get it to the right size. So that’s what I’m paying $800 for—a pile of broken crap?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpcz9VZNTZ4
John Hiatt--Perfectly Good Guitar
"There oughta be a law
With no bail
Smash a guitar and you go to jail
With no chance
For early parole
You don't get out
Until you get some soul"
Makes an appropriate bookend to the legendary "1984" Ad.
Once they smashed authority and advanced freedom, now they crush everything into a little clean control box.
Hey Patrick--Great minds...
Hendrix was a great guitar player but I bet he would have been bad at selling iPhones.
Years ago there was a viral series called “will it blend” in which various modern devices were out in blender to see them turned into powders. This sparked to sane outrage. But creative types need to remember that there’s no power to create without the power to destroy. Not sure we’re living things fit in there.
They say if you run the ad backwards, it is much more effective. That way you see that all of these instruments and things we love can fit into one thin iPad.
I can do without Apple, but I'm coming around to the idea of having my own hydraulic press.
I’m writing this on an iPad with cellular service. It has a nice shell that keeps it dry and drop capable. It is the one previous generation, but it costs about half the new iPad Pros. I’ll stick with it.
The intersection of Corporate greed and art?
Where exactly is this on the woke scale. How am I required to "feel" about this ART?
My 'FEELS' are is stark tension with each other.
My instant thought before watching the video ( I rarely click on videos) was "Piss Christ".
The hoi polloi demonstrated uproar against the photos, was met with tongue clucking from the elites. Snobsplaining, "art" took a sophisticated intellectual palate, out of the reach of mere commoners.
This ad, does what it is supposed to. What is problem? Huge Hydraulic press maxes out the 'cool quotient'. The buyers being targeted love the ad. Those deciding to act offended are scrambling to get picked by the right team.
99% of the populations tosses out two large garbage cans of unwanted 'stuff' every week. Yes that includes musical instruments.
Do you know where they go. A huge hydraulic press, that's what is inside the garbage truck that shows up at your front door once a week.
I guess the offense is recording the smooshing.
My first car was a POS 3000. When I got it sticks held 3 windows up. The front fenders were rusted out above the headlights and it smoked enough to have been the impetus for the first clean air act. (But - thanks, Dad - I learned to replace window internals, brake service, rebuilding an engine and the beauty of Bondo...)
Then I'd go to a movie and watch Mustangs, GTOs and other "dream" cars get trashed in a chase scene. I don't recall any artists objecting.
That said, it's not a great commercial IMO.
Yesterday, Lileks noted that the commercial might work very well, if they ran it in reverse.
"People are paying good money to have them hauled away."
Somewhere in my archive is my post showing our big upright piano being hauled away. We paid $300, and, at one point, I'd thought the thing was a valuable antique.
This reminds me of why I hate the end of the first Blues Brothers movie. So much mindless destruction.
How to take a stupid commercial and make it atrocious: add Sonny and Cher background music.
I think that's the second time in my life that I've heard that S&C ditty; four, maybe, for the other one.
I'm not the target for the ad--I'm a very late adopter if I adopt at all.
Roger, your comment is blasphemy. To the faithful, there is only one Blues Brothers movie.
I think that is a very clever and inexpensive ad. Heck, you can tell the "bust" wasn't even dry yet. They could have bought most that stuff from an estate sell for half the budget of paying for an actor to see the product. I wouldn't be surprised if they spent more for the rights to use the Sonny and Cher song.
Modern creatives make their names by crushing the traditions and social norms others hold dear. They only protest now because the "CRUSH ALL THAT CAME BEFORE" mob is touching their stuff.
"A myriad of?!"
I give up.
What ghastly prudes are out and about in social media these days? And what are these moral scolds creating (other than repression)?
It was disgusting. And I think you're also missing how the negative reactions relate to the legitimate, growing fear about digital repression and the virtual sphere crushing the phsyical world we were made to live in.
It was so deeply anti-human I was left with depressed laughter as the press finally crushed the wooden human figure. Dark perfection.
For years you've been shooting and posting these beautiful or foreboding or riveting photos of your daily morning jaunts and the change of the seasons and your out-in-the-world adventures with Meade, God bless you both. The technology Apple helped create makes that possible--especially the sharing of it--but if Apple and the rest of them have their way, we'll spend as little time out there as possible and just about all of it glued to our screens the sake of a phony digital facsimile.
Yeah, I didn't like guitars being smashed either, call me a ghastly prude lol.
I found the commercial sad before seeing any commentary about it.
I for one look forward to the followup ad where all those cultural artifacts are fed into a giant grinder, rather than crushed, with an iPhone coming out the chute at the bottom. Better conveys the idea that seeing the sausage made can be unpleasant.
I thought the video was brilliant. Carefully cramming/smashing all that creative stuff into the "thinnest" iPad ever. Very cool. It communicates their point to me (I'm a tech nerd), with clever ironic humor. Apple at its best. I also like that the artsy people, who seem to be missing the message, are making it all go viral with their silly angst.
The very same ad agency that put upstart Apple on the map with the "1984" commercial has completed the circle by having the behemoth it built crush humanity's creative tools. Perfect.
I agree with those here who like the ad, for the reasons already stated.
The fact that people are arguing about it is a sign that it was effective. If it was a generic “look what this new product can do” ad, no one would care.
Of course, the question is will it increase sales.
ATBGE: Awful Taste But Great Execution.
Rabel said...
There's a abundance of upright pianos.
5/9/24, 8:53 PM
Now perhaps, but not if they keep crushing them there won't be.
For creative types crushing the instruments of inspiration can be mentally crippling.
Our 8 year old boy wept over breakfast when the ad played yesterday. He wasn’t comforted until he saw the ad played in reverse.
The destruction isn’t what’s disturbing to me. It’s the message that all these tangible things that we’ve created masterpieces with over the centuries are being replaced by, what? The representation of those things? Sure, there’s an abundance of bad pianos in the world; doesn’t mean you can replace the tactile pressing of piano keys with some digital facsimile.
And I’m not a luddite. Husband works for Apple, we have a home full of iPads, phones, watches.
I'm at the point where I resent these corporate apologies more than I am offended by what caused the initial offense. (Because the offense was usually unintentional and the apologies are 100% intentional and CYA motivated.)
This was not a great commercial. It showed messy destruction of beautiful things. (I suspect that the ad was AI generated and they wanted to show off their AI prowess when people asked how the commercial was made.)
For example: The ad would have been much more effective if they showed an artist adding these things to their canvas, and then turned the canvas around to reveal the whole canvas back as the new iPad.
But as the old saying goes, it's always easier to destroy than to create.
One difference between this advert and the examples given of the Who and company (what? No Clash), is that those are all artists creating something artistic out of destruction whereas this Apple advert is just the usual corporate advert attention-getting in the service of flogging a product.
But I think the outrage is OTT. Eye-rolling would be more appropriate, especially given the poverty of new Apple products since Jobs died and Cook took over, with everything merely being slimmer, faster extensions of what Jobs created more than a decade ago.
Now that's a cause for regret.
"It went viral! Great commercial!"
I note that the Bud Light commercials went viral, too.
Post a Comment