“Crush!” » This is the title of Apple’s latest advertising spot, presented on the X network by the company’s CEO, Tim Cook himself. It deserves its name. On the set, a pyramid-shaped pile of pleasant objects: a piano, a guitar, a trumpet, a bust, cans of paint, a stereo, a television… Mercilessly, the press slowly closes, crushing them all one by one. these instruments in a splash of multicolored paint. When the press reopens, all that remains in the middle is an iPad tablet, the latest model, almost invisible with its 5 millimeters thickness.
This is the latest take on creative destruction from Silicon Valley’s most famous company. From color and abundant diversity comes extra-flat black full of artificial intelligence (AI). Disturbing vision which appears as the negative of the 1984 advertisement praising the arrival of the Macintosh computer. We saw an athlete in bright colors pulverizing an Orwellian universe with a sledgehammer (with her book 1984Secker and Warburg, 1949) monochrome and totalitarian.
The reaction was immediate, and negative, on the networks. It is “the destruction of the human experience thanks to Silicon Valley”, reacted the British actor Hugh Grant. Others believe that Steve Jobs himself would have been shocked by this gory version of digital capabilities. Immediately, Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice director of marketing, backpedaled. “Our goal is to celebrate the myriad ways people express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the boat with this video and we are sorry”, he assured. The spot will not be broadcast on television.
Delicate situation
If the objective was to get people talking about their new product, it’s a success. The media impact was infinitely greater than anticipated. But this came across as a sign of intolerable arrogance.
This ad could also be interpreted the other way around. Wouldn’t it be, subliminally, the metaphor of an Apple which fears that it will no longer be the actor of a new technological breakthrough, but its victim? The firm is today in a delicate situation. Over the last six quarters, its turnover has declined five times in a row. And in the field of iPad tablets, sales have been declining for more than two years. The firm has been overtaken in market capitalization by its long-time rival, Microsoft, and investors are concerned about its delay in AI.
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