Samsung heard that Apple managed to upset a lot of people with the “Crush” ad revealed last week that smushed instruments, arcade games, and sculptures into a shiny new OLED-screened iPad Pro, and apparently just had to get into the conversation. Apple eventually apologized, with an exec saying it “missed the mark.”
On one side, responses included creatives like Hugh Grant and anyone who spotted a slightly-too-on-the-nose representation of Big Tech’s steamroller approach to art, copyright, and the past, powered by the might of generative AI tools. On the other there were the people ticked off by the knowledge that there was any backlash at all.
In response, the Samsung Mobile account on X posted this video with the hashtag “UnCrush,” which Ad Age reports was created by BBH USA and directed by Zen Pace. It shows a woman stepping over debris and spilled paint reminiscent of the end of Apple’s big hydraulic press incident and taking a seat to hum and play notes on a guitar assisted somehow by notes displayed on her Galaxy Tab S9 and the power of Galaxy AI.
A still from Samsung’s 2017 Galaxy S8 ad mocking the notch on the iPhone X.Image: Samsung
No matter which side you’re on when it comes to the great iPad ad political divide, it’s a little fun to see Samsung trying to find a weak point in Apple’s armor again. Samsung’s marketing department used to practically specialize in this stuff, which the company’s lawyers’ argued “drove Apple crazy,” but it seemed to run out of gas after deleting ads about iPhones dropping the in-box charging adapter. More recent attempts, like a browser-based Galaxy test drive for iPhone owners, just haven’t had the same punch as mocking that distinctive notch.
(Originally posted by Richard Lawler)