Have you been following the Apple iPad Pro content debacle?
Here is a quick summary. A Current online ad for the new iPad Pro featured a large hydraulic press slowly crushing various symbols of creativity. A metronome, a piano, a record player, a video game, paints, books and other creative tools shatter and shatter as the song “All I Ever Need Is You” by Sonny and Cher plays.
The title of the ad? “Crush!”
I think the purpose of the commercial is to show that Apple has managed to pack all of that previous analog creativity into its new, very thin iPad Pro (that’s the technical term).
To say the ad received poor reviews is an understatement of the response. The verdict was swift and unyielding. The creative world freaked out.
On X, actor Hugh Grant shared Tim Cook’s post with the ad and added this comment: “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.”
When fellow actress Justine Bateman shared Tim Cook’s post, she simply wrote“Really, what’s wrong with you?” Other criticisms ranged from challenging tone to wastefulness to many worse things.
A few days later, Apple apologized and canceled plans to air the commercial on television.
How to bring not-so-great content ideas to life
The level of anger surprises me. Look, the ad does show the eyeballs of a squishy ball with an emoji face bursting under the pressure of the plates, but still. To describe the ad as “actually psychotic” would perhaps be an exaggeration.
Yes, the ad missed its target. And the company’s subsequent decision to apologize makes sense.
But anyone who has been involved in the creation of a content failure knows this truth: mistakes seem much more obvious in hindsight.
I bet on paper this concept sounded great. The brainstorming meeting probably started something like this: “We want to show how the iPad Pro metaphorically combines this huge amount of creative tools into a thin and cool package.”
Maybe someone suggested depicting this exact thing with CGI (perhaps a colorful tornado rising from the screen). Then someone else suggested that it would be more meaningful to show the actual physical objects being condensed.
Here is my imaginary version of the conversation that could have taken place after someone pointed this out popular internet meme of things being crushed in a hydraulic press.
“People love this!”
“If we add buckets of paint, it will be super colorful and cool.”
“It will be a cooler version of that LG ad that ran in 2008.”
“Exactly!”
“It’ll be just like that commercial where a bus driver kidnaps and then squashes all the cute little Pokémon characters on a bus!” (Believe it or not, this was actually a thing.)
The resulting commercial suffers from the perfect creative storm: a not-great (copycat) idea at absolutely the wrong time.
None of us know what constraints Apple’s creative team was working under. How much time did you have to develop a concept? Did they have time to test it in front of an audience? Maybe chopping up physical objects fits the budget better than CGI. All of these factors influence the creative process and possibilities (even at a giant company like Apple).
That’s not an excuse – it’s simply reality.
Content errors or content errors?
Many advertising campaigns provoke the question: “What the hell were they thinking?” Answer (you think Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner commercial or those creepy brand tributes that follow celebrity deaths).
Does that mean they are failures? Or are they errors? And what’s the difference?
As I wrote after Peloton’s holiday advertising debacle (remember that?), people learn to fear failure at an early age. Most of us hear warning messages almost from day one.
Some are necessary and helpful (“Don’t put a knife in a toaster” or “Look both ways before crossing the street.”) Others are not (“Do the essay perfectly” or “Don’t miss that goal.” “ .”)
As a result, many people are afraid of taking risks – and this hinders creativity. The problem arises from mixing failure and mistakes. It helps to know the difference.
I moved to Los Angeles in 1987 to become a rock and roll musician. I failed. But it wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t wrong to try. My attempt just didn’t work.
Calling a failed attempt a “mistake” feeds the fears that keep people from trying anything creative.
In creative marketing, it’s all too common to confuse failures and mistakes. Sure, people create content (and let’s not forget that there are always people behind these ideas) that really counts as mistakes.
They also create content that simply fails.
Don’t let extreme reactions make you fear failure
Here’s the thing about failed content. You can do all the work to research your audience and take the time to develop and refine your ideas – and the content could still fail. The story, platform, or format may not resonate, or the audience may simply not be interested in it. That doesn’t mean it’s a bug.
Was the Apple ad a mistake? Maybe, but I don’t think so.
Was it a failure? The snappy reaction says “yes.”
Still, the commercial generated an impressive amount of exposure (53 million views of the Tim Cook post on X, per variety.) And despite the apology, the company hasn’t removed the ad from its YouTube page, where it has garnered more than 1 million views.
The fictional Captain Jean Luc Picard once said: “It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.” That is not weakness. This is life.” The Apple advert turns this statement on its head – Apple made a lot of mistakes and still attracted a huge amount of attention.
I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t criticize creative work. Constructive criticism helps us learn from our own mistakes and those of others. You can even laugh about content failures.
Just acknowledge, as the Roman philosopher Cicero once wrote, “Not every mistake is stupid.”
Creative teams take risks. They try things outside their comfort zone. Sometimes they fail (sometimes spectacularly).
But don’t let other people’s anger over failures affect your willingness to try creative things.
Wouldn’t you love it if the whole world was talking about the content you created? To get there, you have to risk that level of failure.
And taking this risk is not a mistake.
It’s your story. Say it well.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute