Sometimes smart can end up being smarty pants. As is the case with the Apple commercial introducing the new M4-powered iPad Pro last week. Billed as ‘the most powerful iPad’ that’s ‘also the thinnest’, the ad‘s objective, we reckon, was to suggest Western culture‘s creative juices – represented by the likes of various musical instruments, a 80s-era Space Invaders arcade machine, Angry Bird and emoji squishy stress balls – all being encapsulated into a 5mm thick Apple product. Instead, what we see is Genghis Khan’s wet dream: the pulverisation of some iconic objects depicting Western civilisation between two metal plates, all over the peppy soundtrack of Sonny and Cher‘s 1972 song, ‘All I Ever Need Is You.’
Listening to Cher belting out, ‘Winters come and then they go/ And we watch the melting snow,’ while a metronome, guitar and a whole turntable get crushed, may be smashing installation art. But it’s sure no invitation to buy a product, no matter how sleek and smart it may be. Ads, even from the venerable ‘Think Different’ House of Apple, can go balls up. Ridley Scott’s 1984 Apple Macintosh had infamously portrayed an Orwellian future being challenged by a sledgehammer-wielding heroine, with the tagline ‘You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984’.’ That was changed. Once again, Apple has had to eat crumble pie and, well, apple-ogise.
