For decades, Apple sold itself as the company for creative people. Its “Think Different” campaign honored artists and musicians; its Mac and iPad ads showed filmmakers, painters and producers at work. In May 2024, one ad seemed to say the opposite.
The ad
“Crush!” was released on May 7, 2024, a Tuesday, on Apple’s YouTube channel and CEO Tim Cook’s account on X. It was meant to show how thin the new iPad Pro was.
The minute-long film showed a giant hydraulic press slowly descending on a pile of objects: a piano, a trumpet, a record player, a TV, an arcade machine, a sculpture, a painting, a chess board, books, sketches and cans of paint. Everything splintered and burst, colors spilling over the sides. When the press lifted, all that remained was a slim iPad.
The reaction
The idea was that the iPad could replace all of those tools. Many creative people saw something else: a company literally crushing the instruments and materials of human art to make a gadget.
Criticism came quickly from artists, musicians and filmmakers, including actor Hugh Grant and filmmaker Justine Bateman, who saw it as a literal picture of big tech laying waste to culture. Director Reed Morano posted: “Hey @tim_cook READ THE ROOM, BRO.” Editorial cartoonists drew creators being squashed. As USA Today noted, the image hit a nerve at a moment when many creators feared that artificial intelligence threatened their work.
Variety also pointed out that the concept was strikingly similar to a 2008 ad for an LG phone, in which a hydraulic press crushed instruments, camera lenses, speakers and paint, with the phone emerging at the end.
The apology
On May 9, two days after release, Apple did something it rarely does. Tor Myhren, its vice president of marketing communications, gave a statement to Ad Age:
“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world. 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.”
Apple left the video on YouTube but said the ad would not run on television.
Why it failed
- The metaphor worked too well. “Everything in one device” is a fair product claim, but showing it as destruction made the audience feel the loss, not the gain.
- It insulted the core audience. Apple’s most loyal customers include the artists, musicians and designers whose tools were being crushed.
- The timing was bad. With creative workers anxious about AI replacing them, an image of technology flattening art read as a statement about the industry, not just a product.
- It contradicted the brand’s history. A company famous for “Here’s to the crazy ones” appeared to be crushing what the crazy ones use.
Legacy
“Crush!” never ran as a TV commercial, but it became one of the most discussed ads of 2024 and a rare public misstep for one of the world’s most skilled marketers. It is now a standard example of how a clever visual idea can carry a meaning its makers never intended, and why brands test not only whether an ad is striking, but what it will make people feel.