Samsung shades Apple with 'Creativity cannot be crushed' ad after iPad promo backlash
Samsung has capitalized on backlash from Apple's tone-deaf iPad Pro ad with a message of its own: Samsung is your creative ally, not Apple.
Negative reactions to Apple's promo for the new iPad Pro, which featured a hydraulic press crushing creative tools and instruments, prompted the company to issue a rare apology for "missing the mark" — and it cancelled plans to run the ad on TV.
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Samsung had some thoughts too, running its own ad that seemed to pick up right where the hydraulic press left off.
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Why Apple's iPad ad fell flat
The rise of AI threatens creative livelihoods with the very unresolved issue of copyright infringement and generative AI tools that can create images, music, video, and text with simple prompts. The issue boils down to whether AI will replace jobs or empower creatives to better express themselves. Apple has long positioned itself as a friend to creatives, and profits from our aspirations of being the best creative versions of ourselves. Now that Apple's reputation has been tarnished, Samsung is ready to swoop in and offer consolation.
In the ad for Samsung's Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra posted on X, a woman walks through scattered wooden and metal debris and picks up a beat-up guitar from the floor of an empty warehouse like the one featured in the Apple ad. Reading sheet music from the Samsung Galaxy tablet propped up on a music stand, she starts playing guitar and smiles. The camera pans out to reveal a similar hydraulic press platform dripping with paint as the text overlay reads "Creativity cannot be crushed."
Samsung's ad is a not-so-subtle callout of Apple's iPad Pro announcement that struck the wrong note at the wrong time. "Apple's commercial was no doubt intended to convey the idea that the iPad Pro can also do many of the tasks that the various obliterated tools could," said Mashable reporter Amanda Yeo. "Unfortunately, the result looked more grimly dystopian than the tech giant intended."
But fear not, creatives. The strategically-timed move from Samsung has just the solution.
Cecily is a tech reporter at Mashable who covers AI, Apple, and emerging tech trends. Before getting her master's degree at Columbia Journalism School, she spent several years working with startups and social impact businesses for Unreasonable Group and B Lab. Before that, she co-founded a startup consulting business for emerging entrepreneurial hubs in South America, Europe, and Asia. You can find her on X at @cecily_mauran.
