Apple’s tone deaf advert shows the tech firm is losing its way

Apple has a reputation for advertising that not only sells their products effectively, but sets a standard few of their competitors could ever hope to attain. Their famous advert for the Mac, which launched forty years ago, was directed by Ridley Scott, fresh from Blade Runner, and channelled Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to thrilling and iconic effect. But this genius for marketing makes their latest, much-castigated promotional film for the new iPad, ‘Create’, both bewildering and disturbing. It is utterly inexplicable that their highly-paid teams of marketing experts and PRs would ever have believed it to be a good idea.

In the clip, which (subconsciously or otherwise) pays homage to Scott’s early advert, many accoutrements of human endeavour, from musical instruments and books to artworks and arcade games, are placed on a platform and slowly crushed, being transformed into nothing more than a paint-oozing mess. The advert, which is soundtracked by Sonny and Cher’s incongruously jaunty ‘All I Ever Need is You’, is designed to showcase the new iPad Pro, Apple’s thinnest ever product.