Apple's new ad: a perfect reflection of society
medium.com
medium.com
I don’t see it particularly wasteful - especially when you consider all of the other things that go into making _any_ commercial. Are we also outraged that people travel to sets to create Apples other ads? After all, those activities generate waste (but you don’t see it on screen). Is Apple supposed to stop creating ads?
Okay, hydraulic presses are kind of violent, but they’re not inherently destructive devices. They’re an incredibly common manufacturing process. They literally form raw materials into useful components. This feels pretty on point with my interpretation of Apples message - we’ve put all of these great things into an iPad.
> Are we also outraged that people travel to sets to create Apples other ads?
Don't try to apply logic. Hivemind wants to hivemind. It is like they are told what to be outraged about. Selective outrage.
I'm wondering if it impacts people with strong emotional bond to art more than others.
I felt it was just super weird and nonsensical.
I personally just took it as a spoof on the hydraulic press channel.
The ad caused people to remember unresolved dissonance they're using media to avoid thinking about in the first place.
An ad that was designed to emotionally manipulate people did so, but in a slightly unintentional direction. In a twisted way the complainers are right. Apple's ad was a failure, because it didn't keep the audience in a docile and uncritical mood. It's just an even more bleak state of the world than my cynicism would throw around as banter.
To consumerism's great relief, the people primed to be introspective for a bit will look elsewhere, and see blunders in messaging from people who don't make advertisement their profession. Things like this blogpost will feed mental pathways that allow sidestepping their dissonance and go back to not thinking too hard about much of anything at all.
Apple didn't change, they were always pushing for a premium tech product at the expense of everything else (personalisation, repairability, upgradability).
And it's the "artists" workers that for years supported Apple by making it their go-to work platform.
They are waking up to reality, and dislike it.
Yes, this has been happening for a while already. And the ad confirms that their fears were warranted.
My point is that they shaped the world like this by short-sightedness, and this same short-sightedness make them critizes the ad, instead of realizing what they have done.
The commercial says: yes, the tea leaves you've been reading — that bleak picture — it's exactly how you pictured it and let us adjust the spotlight a little.
(And I don't consider myself an audiophile.)
It is the same concept as if you were to destroy a gift given to you by a friend. Of course, the point beyond that is that the use of destruction is reflective of the reality of modern "civilization" and goes beyond the point of the ad.
Nobody complained when Christopher Nolan crashed a Boeing 747 into a building and then blew it up, all for a movie. Arguably that's worse than whatever was destroyed in Apple's ad. What's the reason for the discrepancy?
[1] https://screenrant.com/tenet-christopher-nolan-plane-crash-s...
Of course it's a bit of a hyperbole, but I can't say I disagree.
Like, these corporations don't produce all of this stuff just for the sake of it - there are consumers like "us" buying it at the other end. Us again meaning people in countries and in demographics where you can afford it, I don't blame someone in a poor country burning tyres for heat - their environmental damage over a full year is probably less than mine over a month.
And while personally I don't own a car, don't fly, work on a 5 year old desktop computer, old phone, eat meat or fish less than twice a week... I often wonder:
How come I earn 2-3 times modal wages writing C++ software to stream video over internet? Sure lots of people watch Netflix or Youtube for leisure, but how come society value my labour so much higher than someone working in construction, education, retail, food? Why don't I pay more taxes? Should software be eating the world?
Because the people you work for make shitloads of money delivering content and their employees expect to be paid accordingly? Because Twitter who delivers short messages on the Internet sold for 44b, while Westinghouse who makes nuclear reactors sold for $7.9b? Seems like there's more demand for a propaganda vehicle than for a power plant.
So please help me understand why the people I work for are making shitloads of money? Why is Twitter worth $ 44b?
Asking why here is mostly meant rhetorically. What I'm really after is figuring out if there's a way to restructure society such that monetary rewards are directed towards what's valuable to society. IMO, streaming video and social networks aren't that.
How many people needed to green light this - even at the concept stage? 20? 50?
How much time was taken to create it? 3 months? 6 months?
At least one of them had to raise this as an issue across all that time, yet it was their best idea of all proposed ideas.
This being their best idea might be the biggest indictment of the ad.
I'd say the bigger indictment is they thought it good enough, regardless of best.
>At least one of them had to raise this as an issue across all that time, yet it was their best idea of all proposed ideas.
Or maybe it was approved by 50 well adjusted people who didn't get irrationally mad at such ads, and it's a bunch of chronically online commentators who are blowing it out of proportion?
Then someone messed up by tasking them, given this ad is obviously targeting emotion not rationality.
To make this clear, I'll describe a hypothetical ad for a fast food restaurant that depicts throwing away common groceries, because you don't need those pesky things anymore. Food is wasted and disposed of every day in famously large quantities. Does that exculpate the ad from the obvious criticisms?
I see this as art, and I find it hard to believe that everyone complaining about this have ever complained about an explosion in an action movie destroying set props.
1. Who is this advertisement for?
2. How persuasive is it for that person?
Compare and contrast Apple's two other advertising campaigns: the black-and-white dancers for iPod [0], and the 'resistance' 1984 for Macintosh [1]. In the former, the target were people who wanted to have a good time but also highlighted the fashionable white chord that was unique to iPods of the time. It said you could have fun and be cool (if you bought an iPod). In the latter case, the target were people who wanted to be free from soulless computers and express themselves. It said you could have freedom and be unique (if you bought a Macintosh).
Now lets compare the newest advertisement. If you are a creator, watching a bunch of the things you like and create destroyed is unsettling. If you like appreciating those creations, then watching a bunch of artwork, games, etc destroyed is unsettling. If you like to preserve things, watching a bunch of well-crafted instruments and technology that last decades destroyed and replaced by a device that barely lasts a few years is unsettling.
Every advertisement has one job: Persuade TARGET to do ACTION. Advertising is designed to manipulate your feelings toward this end. This advertisement is not just a flop, but is triggering strong negative feelings in the very target demographic. It became an organic and viral Anti-Marketing campaign for Apple itself. From a marketing perspective I would want to yank and kill this ad as fast as possible and get ahead of all the strong negative reactions.
As an exercise in these ideas, I'm going to try rewriting this ad in a way that isn't so off putting.
---
> Open with a dark room.
> Cut to a montage of hands turning on a light switch.
> Cut to scenes of well-maintained basements slowly lighting up, florescent lamps flickering
> Pan over various details of each room as lights flicker, one an art studio, one a musician studio, a couple of others
> Shots of each person doing some care maintenance (musician dusting a guitar, painter cleaning a brush, etc)
> Cut to musicians picking up a couple of instruments, sync shots together to get a soundtrack, soundtrack continues until the end of the commercial
> Montage of other people being inspired and doing a few quick drawings/paintings/singing/music/etc.
> Wind down with everybody slowly putting everything back
> Quick shots of everybody in their basement/studio's doorway, each put a hand over the lightswitch, look back into the room, then looking down.
> Cut to framed image of an iPad, and a hand reaching to unplug its charger and put it into a backpack or carrier.
> Cut to hand on a lightswitch turing out the lights, cut music, cut to black
> White-on-Black text centered: "You'll be back"
> cut to the text: 'iPad'
> fin