Apple acts quickly

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook heralded the launch of the latest Apple iPad lineup as “the biggest day for iPad since its introduction.” That may well be true, but for many people the commercial intended to support the launch overshadowed the technology itself, with the ad perceived as portraying an existential threat to human creativity. In response to the outcry, Apple quickly withdrew the ad and apologized.

Vocal minority or wider threat?

Brands must be careful not to cause offense, particularly given today’s name and shame world, but was it necessary for one as strong as Apple to react so quickly?

To help answer this question, I looked at data from Kantar’s BrandDynamics, a real-time brand guidance dataset that tracks awareness and attitudes toward brands in many categories, including tech devices. A big benefit of a study like this is that it captures responses from a large, representative cross-section of tech buyers, not just the vocal minority.   Daily data collection means even small changes can be picked up immediately.  What happened, you ask? Well, the data hardly rippled in response to the furor over the ad.

Why the “Crush!” ad evoked a backlash

Before exploring the data further, let’s review why the ad met with such negative backlash, after all, not everyone will have seen it -- shocking as that may be for industry insiders. Kantar DX Analytics, a social measurement tool, finds that commentary related to the ad on social media spiked for two days, but the volume of talk was small by comparison to that for the Apple brand as a whole and rapidly dropped back to normal levels. 

The "Crush!" video, intended to celebrate the creativity that could be unleashed by the new generation of iPad, shows a giant hydraulic press squashing flat a pile of creative tools -- from a trumpet to a set of paints, a guitar to an angry bird toy -- then retracting to reveal the new, thinner iPad, all accompanied by Sonny and Cher’s “All I Ever Need Is You.” 

Many viewers, like Dave LeClair of Tom’s Guide, may simply have thought, “That was pretty neat.” However, when Cook released the ad on X, the backlash started, centered on Hollywood and the creative community. Hugh Grant decried the ad as portraying the "Destruction of human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley."  Much of the news coverage that followed suggested the ad was tone deaf to the growing threat A.I. is seen to present to people with careers in the creative arts.

In response to social media uproar and subsequent news media coverage, Tor Myhren, Apple’s VP of marketing communications stated, “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.”

Unfortunately, it is not unusual for brands to face a backlash when their advertising strikes an unintended note. And Apple does need the new iPad upgrade to be successful given the slump in sales over the last year. But were they justified in pulling the ad so quickly?

Little response from a wider audience

Kantar BrandDynamics indicates most people never knew the ad even existed, or if they did, failed to perceive it as a threat. The percentage of people reporting they had heard negative buzz about Apple hardly moved in the days following the ad’s release.  Positive buzz did drop a couple of points in the weeks following the launch, but that may have had more to do with news coverage of the product launch dying away. Besides, the share of people who reported hearing positive buzz about Apple dwarfs that of its direct competitors.

An advantage of BrandDynamics is that it is sensitive enough to identify short-term changes in real-time, even among small consumer segments. Pulling the ad so fast may have avoided a wider backlash, but there is little evidence that this was likely. 

Kantar BrandDynamics forecasts no long-term impact on the brand, and even in the short-term confirms Apple to be a hugely strong brand: following the iPad launch, the proportion of people who would consider buying an Apple device actually edged a couple of points higher than Samsung.  And the data shows Apple’s far higher conversion from consideration to purchase, with the number of people reporting having bought an Apple device at least double that of its nearest rival.  If anything, that gap widens slightly following the iPad launch.

Which brings me to consider the effect of Samsung’s video aiming to take advantage of Apple’s discomfort over the outcry over the “Crush!” ad. Released the week following the withdrawal of the Apple ad, the Samsung video shows a woman entering what appears to be the set of the Apple spot, carefully stepping around the creative debris.  She picks up a broken guitar and starts to play it. The end line: “Creativity cannot be crushed.”

Now, that might be a nice poke in the eye for the folks at Apple, but there is little evidence from BrandDynamics that the video’s release had any effect on a wider audience. 

Whatever the opinions offered on X and in the news media, the one inescapable fact from the “Crush!” episode is that it takes a significant effort to change people's impressions of a brand as strong as Apple.  Around the world, the brand is perceived as so Meaningful, Different and Salient that in 2024, it once again tops Kantar’s Global Top 100 Most Valuable Brands ranking with a value of over $1 trillion. BrandDynamics tracks the same three brand equity metrics -- Meaningful, Different and Salient -- and finds the long-term equity of Apple in the US to be as strong as ever.

Less disaster averted, more a savvy PR move

Based on BrandDynamics data, we rule this a storm in a teacup rather than a disaster averted.  We can now see Apple likely pulled the ad to avoid tainting the launch of Apple Intelligence. A brand as strong as Apple can easily shrug off a misstep -- even with growing concerns over AI -- and checking in with real consumers validates that point of view.  

However, most brands are nowhere near as strong as Apple, making real-time consumer feedback and access to continuous insights on your brand essential to powering your daily marketing decisions and shaping your brand.