Fail Apple · 2024
Apple crushes a piano and apologises
🇺🇸 United States🇬🇧 United Kingdom🇯🇵 Japan
What happened
The 'Crush!' film for the iPad Pro put a piano, a trumpet, paint cans, books and an arcade cabinet under an industrial press, leaving a tablet. Apple apologised within days, said it 'missed the mark', and dropped the ad from TV plans.
What went wrong
It launched into a year of anxiety about machines replacing creative work — from the same company selling tools to creatives. The metaphor said 'we destroyed all of this', and the audience took it literally.
The rule
The same metaphor changes meaning with the news cycle. Destruction imagery lands differently when your audience is worried about being destroyed.
Takeaway
Test the metaphor against what your audience is currently afraid of, not against what it meant last year.