Apple’s New iPad Ad Hit by Artists, Tech Experts

A newly released ad promoting Apple’s new iPad Pro has struck quite a nerve online as it shows a hydraulic press crushing just about every creative instrument artists and consumers have used over the years — from a piano and record player, to piles of paint, books, cameras, and relics of arcade games.

The ad for Apple's new iPad is being crushed. I Screenshot: Apple

Resulting from the destruction? A pristine new iPad Pro, Wyatte Grantham-Philips reported for the Associated Press (AP).

“The most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest,” a narrator says at the end of the commercial. Apple’s intention seems straightforward: Look at all the things this new product can do.

But critics have called it tone-deaf — with several marketing experts noting the campaign’s execution didn’t land.

“I had a really disturbing reaction to the ad,” said Americus Reed II, professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

“I understood conceptually what they were trying to do, but ... I think the way it came across is, here is technology crushing the life of that nostalgic sort of joy (from former times).”

The ad also arrives during a time many feel uncertain or fearful about seeing their work or everyday routines “replaced” by technological advances — particularly amid the rapid commercialization of generative artificial intelligence.

And watching beloved items get smashed into oblivion doesn’t help curb those fears, Reed and others note.

Several celebrities were also among the voices critical of Apple’s “Crush!” commercial on social media this week.

“The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley,” actor Hugh Grant wrote on the social media platform X, in a repost of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s sharing of the ad.

Some found the ad to be a telling metaphor of the industry today — particularly concerns about big tech negatively impacting creatives. Filmmaker Justine Bateman wrote on X that the commercial “crushes the arts.”