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Apple Destroys Vintage Instruments in Tone-Deaf New Commercial for iPad Pro

MaxOctane said:
That's exactly right: the new Logic features will let people who don't play drums or bass or keyboard, and have no way to record them (which happens to be most people), lay down a track and make music. How is that not a good thing?

And by the way, I already have EZDrummer, plus folders full of drum loops. Same thing.
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How is it a bad thing. Just like someone buying an instrument that will probably never have any proficiency do it as a form of entertainment. We often think too big.
 
Has anybody mentioned yet how every ad for Samplers decades ago had the same logic?
The hyperbolic outrage generated by this ad far outweighs any perceived slight to the music industry.
It's just an ad, all ads are an insult to your intelligence, at least this one was halfway interesting.
 
chocobitz825 said:
thank goodness someone had the sense to point out there are things called "prop departments"...
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thank goodness someone had the sense to point out the actual faulty metaphor being used & not just basic film making techniques you learn in film school 101.
 
timprebble said:
Do you think provoking all this reaction is intentional? Ad agencys etc are supposedly experts on this sort of thing, and the ad would have been tested on focus groups
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They have been losing sales for years. I suspect the old scientific ways of advertising has long been replaced by something more ideological, more self-supported. If they have focus groups, they are probably restricted to a target group they believe will be their perspective customers.
 
I get the impression that the ad has been effective on the planned target group, but that that target group is not yet the core business for Apple. I've been getting the impression that they are trying to get rid of the old creatives that made their fortune for years, but that those beardy dinosaurs are still alive, working and purchasing. It's a bit like that manager of the Italian cultural radio, desperate for the too many lovers of Beethoven still listening the radio.

The core business group they want is maybe less interested to Apple than the beardy guys. There are many more good brands, today, and they may appeal to the new audience in a way that is more universal, or more digestible in particular areas of the world. Newer generations may not feel the magic attraction of the old post-hippie brand, grown singing creativity and elegance and now promoting the dissolution of those values. They may value something that I'm not even able to perceive from the height of my age.

But even Apple seems to miss the target. They went for a violent imagery, that was maybe attractive for users of neon-light decorated PCs in the Nineties, but is likely no longer good for the young graduates grown in very traditional, or modernly refreshing, Confucian values. Dystopia is not necessarily violent and destructive. It can be very ordered and well organized. It might even blend with some utopias.
 
Pier said:
They say there's no bad publicity.
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As a publicist for over 50 years, I have not found that to be true. If a client did something the public hated, and the media amplified it--it could cost them jobs, even a career.

The sooner you could make the story go away, the better. But how? That was the essence of "damage control." Longtime experience taught you the right thing to do--the hard part was to get the client to do it.

Under no circumstance did I relish continuing coverage in the media about what an asshole my client was. Particularly when the truth was that my client was a beautiful person, kind to everyone.

This is not a good ad IMHO. A lot of people have issues with Apple already, and I doubt many people are going to look at it, and say "I had no interest in buying a new iPad, but now I am going to do it!" An ad has no other purpose. An ad should be about one thing--more iPad sales. Not more coverage on social media.

One of the main things that Jobs was so brilliant about selling an image. An image that anything Apple was better than any other similar product. Therefore, justifiably more expensive. It's a vibe. It's in the beautiful design of their products and stores and their ads.

I think that Apple stands to lose a lot if they are seen as less cool. Just as TV hosts like Ellen Degeneres and Jimmy Fallon are not helped in their "nice" images when they are found out to run "toxic" workplaces. It doesn't hurt them, but it doesn't help them. There is such a thing as bad publicity.
 
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ptram said:
I get the impression that the ad has been effective on the planned target group, but that that target group is not yet the core business for Apple. I've been getting the impression that they are trying to get rid of the old creatives that made their fortune for years, but that those beardy dinosaurs are still alive, working and purchasing. It's a bit like that manager of the Italian cultural radio, desperate for the too many lovers of Beethoven still listening the radio.

The core business group they want is maybe less interested to Apple than the beardy guys. There are many more good brands, today, and they may appeal to the new audience in a way that is more universal, or more digestible in particular areas of the world. Newer generations may not feel the magic attraction of the old post-hippie brand, grown singing creativity and elegance and now promoting the dissolution of those values. They may value something that I'm not even able to perceive from the height of my age.

But even Apple seems to miss the target. They went for a violent imagery, that was maybe attractive for users of neon-light decorated PCs in the Nineties, but is likely no longer good for the young graduates grown in very traditional, or modernly refreshing, Confucian values. Dystopia is not necessarily violent and destructive. It can be very ordered and well organized. It might even blend with some utopias.
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Unfortunately in the corporate world there are to many airline pilots whose qualifications are seeing a jet take off and land. Then they invest in research which is just a rinse an repeat.
 
Gotta wonder who their target demographic is with that Sonny and Cher tune? But then they smash real instruments (or likenesses of). The paint suggests blood, dripping over the edges of the press after crushing to death. They must have anticipated offending people, with apology prepared in advance. Or they are just out-of-touch. But then, apple stock has been steeply climbing out of the lowest dip in a year in mid April.
 
MaxOctane said:
That's exactly right: the new Logic features will let people who don't play drums or bass or keyboard, and have no way to record them (which happens to be most people), lay down a track and make music. How is that not a good thing?

And by the way, I already have EZDrummer, plus folders full of drum loops. Same thing.
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Let me turn that question around: how is that a good thing? Is allowing jagovs to pretend they're musicians going to advance the art?
 
I'm amazed at how many people just totally miss why this is so offensive to so many people.

You have to be totally oblivious what's going on in the world right now to see it as one stupid ad, or to comment on Apple's marketing, or that they didn't really crush real instruments, or that it's just good fun, etc.
 
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