[edkennedy]

Missing from this extremely short and underreported article is how badly this played out in Japanese market. The culture they have states that musical instruments, creative tools have some energy and imbued sense of spirit to them. So destroying these elements of culture is really really blunt and gauche to them. The majority of the push back came from Japanese people, and then artists empathizing with their sentiment.

[brundolf]

I'm not Japanese and it was upsetting to me

Not because eg one piano got destroyed; surely that happens all the time, even on camera for eg movies and such. But there was something about watching beautiful objects be destroyed, in slow motion, gratuitously, and with an upbeat/sunny tone, that just aesthetically made me squirm in my seat

[shmageggy]

It goes beyond aesthetics for me. It's like they took everyone's deepest fears about technology and AI, that it will replace or "crush" authentic human experience and creativity, and they just embraced and celebrate it by literally crushing representations of human creativity. At least I'm glad the corporate types were actually honest about their goals, though, instead of their typical doublespeak

[supriyo-biswas]

Exactly my thoughts - this ad does very little to invoke the desire for the product, unlike many other Apple ads.

It's not like Apple has forgotten how to make such ads - the recent one for iPhones with family members asking to not be let go while the owner tries to delete photos represented a familiar experience of people trying to free up storage, and how they wouldn't have to do that if they bought a new iPhone.

On the other hand, this ad just shows stuff being destroyed, just like some of those useless Youtube videos which shows perfectly usable stuff being destroyed under the pretext of "ASMR" or whatnot. Not only is it very difficult to watch as someone who didn't have a lot of money and was taught to make careful use of it from an early age, it just invokes negative vibes, as if possessing a musical instrument is something to be ashamed of.

[jacobsimon]

I haven’t seen anyone mention this yet, but I think the concept here was inspired by all the viral hydraulic press videos on Instagram and TikTok. Here’s a similar video showing random objects and consumer products being crushed in slow motion with similar upbeat music: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q9BtYEnrkg4

[xdennis]

I'm not bothered by the destruction. Destruction itself can have artistic value. For example, you can't portray the Nazis on screen without showing how destructive they were.

What bothers me is the arrogance to say that an iPad, a device which will be obsolete in a few short years, can replace all those instruments and tools that last more than a generation.

This is similar to the history channels which use AI colorized historical footage which wildly shifts objects from red to blue in a few frames and have the audacity to claim this is an improvement over the original.

[FrustratedMonky]

I had same reaction to the 'niceness' of what they were crushing. Things looked too good, like still usable. What if they were slightly older and dinged, scuffed up, looked more like they were done being useful.

[s3p]

For me it was just because of the damage it caused. I guess if I heard someone was throwing out a piano I wouldn't think much of it, but the destruction of everything in the ad made me uneasy. I just felt like it was so wasteful to destroy things in the way they did. But again, maybe I have a double standard, because if I saw someone throw a trumpet or an old camera in the dumpster I probably would not care as much.

[lifeinthevoid]

It looks animated to me, I don't think a lot of real objects were destroyed. (Not an expert though)

[Apocryphon]

Really interesting to consider that this might be one of the few incidents that Shintoists, or at least "cultural Shintoists," have gotten offended at a western production.

Makes me wonder if this is why Apple went out of their way to apologize for the ad. I think if this ad just had non-culturally-specific backlash, they would've simply moved on. But because this impacted a specific market's sensibilities, maybe they felt the need to do a public mea culpa.

[adrian_b]

I have seen recently a documentary about Japanese food, and an interesting fact was that the chefs at some big Japanese restaurant had a special decorated grave, in some nice yard, in which they deposited their old kitchen knives, when those were so worn out that they could no longer be used.

They felt that it would be disrespectful to just dump somewhere the main tools of their work, after they had used those every day for decades.

[smsm42]

I think a lot of people are a little bit Shintoist. That's one of the reasons why we have museums - we regard things as some kind of reflection on people and events, and a chair in which a famous person sat or an instrument they played is different for us than otherwise identical object that doesn't bear that imprint. We may not literally believe in things having spirits, but for many the things have some qualities that go beyond their physical structure. Emotional value, etc.

[xattt]

This is a market where shame and apologies still have significance.

[blhack]

Was there a similar backlash to this identical ad from LG in 2009? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo

[pornel]

The popular sentiment has changed from enthusiasm about "digital", to disillusionment about big tech inserting themselves into our lives to monetize everything.

In 2009, smartphones were a novelty, and the iPad has not been announced yet. People were wowed by the new capabilities that "multimedia" devices were enabling. They were getting rid of the old, outdated, less capable tools.

Nowadays "multimedia" is taken for granted. OTOH generative AI is turning creative arts into commoditized digital sludge. Apple acts like they own and have the right to control everything that is digital. In this world, the analog instruments are a symbol of the last remnants of true human skill, and the physical world that hasn't been taken over by the big tech yet. And Apple is forcefully and destructively smushing it all into AI-chip-powered you-owe-us-30%-for-existing disneyland distopia.

[type0]

Apple ads team should apologize to LG for stealing their ad

[superb_dev]

Given that context, it’s nuts that this ad was approved for the Japanese market

[smugma]

I’ve seen a few comments about this. Is there any English page that documents this in more detail? I find it really interesting.

[rjh29]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto

[bitwize]

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai

[michaelcampbell]

> The majority of the push back came from Japanese people,

Cite?

[_zoltan_]

Do you know if it aired in Japan as an ad?

If not, then I am not sure what you're talking about.

[rideontime]

It aired on the Internet, which is available in Japan. You can see some examples of backlash from Japanese people in the replies to this tweet, if you have a twitter account. https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1787864325258162239

[numpad0]

Absolutely no offense - I don't see what this has to do with Japan at all although this has been repeated everywhere. I think this is just an unfortunate natural intuition.

Japanese users normally aren't exposed to the rest of WWW at all, even on social media, so there's intuition that any notable interactions observed has to do with the four-seasons and egg sandwiches way. But it's also true that there are 0.35x as many of the people here as there are US Americans, or 1.5x more than Germans, which creates a lot of presence in itself, possibly even grossly exaggerated on Twitter due to cultural fit and ongoing collapse of its en-US bubbles. I think this instance is example of the latter being the case mistaken as the former.

[okdood64]

Japan’s iPhone marketshare is one of the largest. You can bet a lot of folks cared to watch it.

[OJFord]

Err, if you want to advertise effectively to X market you generally try to make it appealing to X people?

[doublerabbit]

Have some compassion.

Let me take something of your prize possession and crush it for an iPad. Not all can afford one and such items brings them entertainment.

For some advert to advertise, "your a schmuck for having these, buy an ipad" is just out of order.

[dogman144]

Fairly certain a lot more western “technologist” types are looking up to them.

[pseudalopex]

You missed the point. Apple want to make money in Japan.

[falsaberN1]

I'm honestly shocked. This is not okay, specially when the parent post is not even praising that country in any exaggerated way, just stating a fact.

There are no acceptable targets when it comes to culture.