Apple — Crush!
A hydraulic press crushes a mountain of beautiful creative tools — a piano, paint, cameras, lenses, records, speakers, an arcade machine.
Fig. 01 — Annotated creative
Apple's "Crush!" ad for the new, thinner-than-ever iPad Pro dropped on May 7, 2024. The spot, shared on social by CEO Tim Cook, was meant to show how all your favorite creative tools are now compressed into one sleek device. But the visceral imagery of beloved objects being destroyed sparked a massive backlash from the creative community Apple claims to serve.
This one will be taught in advertising schools for years to come — as a cautionary tale.
On paper, the logic is sound. Metaphor? Check. The new iPad Pro is so thin, it's like we took all these bulky, analog creative instruments and crushed them into one elegant slab of glass and aluminum. Product demo? Check. The ad visually lists all the things the iPad can do: play music, create art, watch movies, play games. It's a classic "all-in-one" value proposition, executed with Apple's signature high-production gloss.
The fatal flaw wasn't the strategy, but the symbolism. The *feeling*. Apple, the company that has positioned itself for decades as the champion of creatives, the brand that gave us "Think Different," released an ad that shows the tools of creativity being brutally, wantonly destroyed. The visuals are genuinely painful to watch for anyone who loves a well-worn guitar, a vintage camera, or a classic arcade game. It felt less like a celebration of technology and more like a snuff film for culture.
The backlash was swift and brutal. Creatives, filmmakers, musicians, and artists recoiled. The message they received wasn't "look at all the amazing things you can do with this one device." It was "look at how we are devaluing and destroying the physical, tactile, soulful tools of your craft." In an era of anxiety about AI replacing human artists, the ad felt tone-deaf at best, and actively hostile at worst. It positioned technology not as a partner to creativity, but as its destroyer.
The most telling part? Apple did something it almost never does: it apologized. "Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world," the company said in a statement. "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." They also pulled the ad from TV. The mea culpa was necessary, but the damage was done. The ad became a meme, a symbol of tech-bro hubris, completely overshadowing the product it was meant to launch.
Ultimately, "Crush!" is a masterclass in the importance of emotional intelligence in advertising. The idea might have looked good on a whiteboard, a sterile, logical concept. But advertising isn't logic; it's persuasion. And watching a hydraulic press obliterate a trumpet isn't persuading creatives you're on their side. It's telling them you see their soul as something to be compressed.