Background: The Brand That Once Smashed the Screen
Apple is the world’s most valuable brand and one of the few companies whose advertising has itself become culturally significant. People have always memorised Apple’s ads and passed them on.
The 1984 Super Bowl ad. “1984” was an imagined future world directed by Ridley Scott, in which a young woman smashes Big Brother’s screen with a hammer. It became one of the most famous marketing moments in history. In the ad, Big Brother, the large controlling force, was a metaphor for IBM, which dominated the computer market at the time. Apple said: IBM is grey and controls everything, we bring you freedom. The Macintosh is a tool for ordinary people, not corporations.
Apple built its brand image on being on the side of the small ordinary person against the big system.
Four decades later, in May 2024, Apple released a new ad. This time the screen was not the thing being smashed.
Campaign Description: The Hydraulic Press
On 7 May 2024, Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a 60-second ad titled “Crush!” on X. His words were: “Introducing the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created.”
The ad shows a giant industrial hydraulic press slowly compressing a large collection of objects. Between the plates sit a piano, a trumpet, a guitar, a record player, a television, cameras, paintings, paint cans, books, a typewriter. Sonny & Cher’s “All I Ever Need Is You” plays in the background while the press slowly destroys everything.
When the press opens, everything is gone. In place of the instruments, books, and art tools sits a single object: the new iPad Pro. A voice says the most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest.
The ad was produced by Apple’s in-house creative team and was scheduled to run on television.
Strategy: What Apple Meant
Apple’s intention was to show visually how one thin device replaces ten different tools. A piano, a guitar, a camera, a canvas, a games console: all of it now fits into one device. The iPad Pro is the most powerful and the thinnest. The hydraulic press was a metaphor meant to convey the idea of many things compressed into one.
Apple’s message was clear enough in itself. But the audience saw something else entirely.
Results and Impact
Public Reaction
The ad generated anger Apple had not seen in years. The reaction came from the group Apple considered its primary audience: creators.
- Hugh Grant wrote on X: “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.”
- Justine Bateman, filmmaker, wrote that technology and AI intend to destroy art and society as a whole.
- Reed Morano, director, told Apple to “read the room” and called the ad genuinely psychotic.
- David Heinemeier Hansson, Basecamp CTO, wrote that it symbolised everything people have ever hated about digitisation.
The criticism was unanimous. Apple was not smashing the screen, as in the “1984” ad. Apple was now the one doing the crushing. And it was crushing precisely the things its own audience, creators, musicians, artists, filmmakers, writers, treat as the meaning of their lives.
Apple’s Response
Two days after release, on 9 May, Apple apologised officially. Apple’s VP of marketing communications Tor Myhren told Ad Age: “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 cancelled all plans to run the ad on television. The video stayed up on YouTube, but there was no TV campaign.
Samsung’s Counterpunch
A week later, on 15 May, Samsung released its response ad, “UnCrush”. In it a woman walks through debris resembling the remains of Apple’s hydraulic press. She picks up a damaged but still working guitar and starts playing. The ad ends with the line: “Creativity cannot be crushed.” Samsung positioned itself as the defender of creativity at exactly the moment Apple appeared to be crushing it.
Sales
iPad Pro M4 sales figures were mixed. The first quarter (Q2 2024) satisfied early adopter demand, but in the following quarter (Q3 2024) iPad Pro shipments fell 40%, with shipments of the more expensive 13-inch models dropping over 50%.
Longer term, iPad sales recovered in Q2 2025, when total iPad revenue grew 15% to $6.4 billion. But the direct effect of the “Crush!” ad on sales is hard to separate from other factors.
Criticism
The 1984 irony is sharp. Back then Apple was the one breaking the big machine. By 2024 Apple had become that machine. In the 1984 ad a young woman throws a hammer at a screen to set people free. In the 2024 version a machine compresses guitars, cameras, and paintings. The roles are completely reversed. Marketer James Clark summed it up well: in the 1984 ad a colourful human broke out of a grey, uniform industrial world.
In the 2024 ad, a grey industrial machine compresses that same colourful, human creativity. In forty years Apple became exactly what it once fought against, and this ad showed that to everyone.
The timing against AI anxiety. The ad appeared when the impact of artificial intelligence on creative professions was the sharpest topic of discussion. Artists, musicians, and writers were facing the question of whether technology would make their skills redundant. A machine crushing human tools and creativity. Apple did not realise that its own ad generated precisely the fear it should have been fighting.
The resemblance to an LG ad. The ad was surprisingly similar to LG’s 2008 ad for the Renoir phone, where a hydraulic press also crushes instruments, cameras, and paints and compresses everything into one device. The difference is that LG used a horizontal press and Apple a vertical one. The LG ad caused no outrage, probably because in 2008 nobody was afraid technology would take their job.
An overreaction? Some commentators felt the reaction was inflated. The ad was a metaphor, not a manifesto. Apple never claimed it wants to destroy culture, it wanted to show that the iPad Pro is thin and capable. Some technology publications, including MacDailyNews, considered Apple’s apology excessive and a capitulation. That raises a question: does a brand have to apologise when a viewer sees something other than what the brand meant?
Lessons Learned
1. It does not matter what the brand meant. Apple’s team saw a metaphor in the hydraulic press: many tools in one device. The audience saw technology crushing culture. Both readings are valid, but in marketing what matters is not what the brand meant, it is what the audience feels. Before releasing an ad you always have to ask: what will people read into this right now?
2. Do not destroy the thing your audience values most. For Apple that is creators: musicians, artists, designers, filmmakers. People who use pianos, guitars, cameras, and painting tools. The “Crush!” ad showed their tools being destroyed. If a brand lives on creators’ support, you cannot crush their tools, not even as a joke.
3. A competitor is always ready to win from your mistakes. Samsung responded to Apple’s failure within a week with “UnCrush”. That is the speed of modern marketing: one brand’s error is another brand’s opportunity. Samsung’s ad was cheap, fast, and effective, because Apple had already created the content for them. Marketers have to accept that every public mistake is simultaneously a gift to competitors.
4. Brand history obliges. Apple has 40 years of brand identity built on liberating creativity. The “1984” ad promised: we are the ones who break the system in the human’s favour. Every future ad has to be consistent with that. “Crush!” contradicted Apple’s own idea.
5. Apologising is a decision, not weakness. Apple apologised quickly and cancelled the TV campaign. Some considered it an excessive concession, others praised it. The world’s largest company admitted it was wrong. For marketers that is a reminder that an apology made at the right moment saves more than stubborn denial.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the Apple Crush ad?
A 60-second iPad Pro ad released in May 2024 showing a hydraulic press crushing musical instruments, cameras, paint, and books, leaving only an iPad. It was intended to show one device replacing many tools.
Why did people hate the Apple Crush ad?
Because Apple’s core audience is creators, and the ad showed their tools being destroyed by a machine, at the exact moment those professions were anxious about AI replacing them. It also inverted Apple’s own “1984” mythology, in which Apple was the one breaking the machine.
Did Apple apologise?
Yes, within two days. Marketing VP Tor Myhren said Apple “missed the mark”, and the planned television campaign was cancelled. The video stayed on YouTube.
How did Samsung respond?
With “UnCrush” a week later: a woman walks through the debris, picks up a damaged but working guitar, and plays it, ending on “Creativity cannot be crushed.”
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- Why Patagonia Sells Used Clothing and Offers Free Repairs – consistency between story and behaviour.
