Apple "iPad Pro What's a computer' (2017) 1:00 (USA)

Even the cutesy premise of a little kid biking around the city doing All Kinds Of Things on their iPad Pro can't make up for the fact that no matter how hard Apple tries, iPad Pro is the red-headed stepchild of the family. Even the creatives don't know how to sell it which is why they've changed direction in less than two years. Back in 2016, they were telling us it was a computer. Here's the voice over from that spot:
Just when you think you know what a computer is, you see a keyboard that can just get out of the way and a screen you can touch and even write on. When you see a computer that can do all that it might just make you wonder, what else can it do?
Then only a year later (i.e. earlier this year) the new campaign was telling us things like "You wouldn’t get PC viruses, if your computer was an iPad Pro."
Now, in the same year they want us to believe a kid who can do All Kinds Of Things on the iPad Pro, something they've been calling a computer for two years, has no idea what a computer is.
Yeah, okay.
I think it's more like "We don't know how to sell this, so we're just gonna play with the word computer and try stuff until someone believes it."
I think they'd be better off selling it as a niche product. You know, the perfect product you stream movies on or distract your kids with in the back seat of the car, or do light stuff on like texting or writing two sentence emails, because while the pen is nice, and there are probably like 15 people who don't work in advertising who use this thing as a "computer," in the laptop sense, we all know the keyboard is such shite it feels like it was ripped off a Fisher-Price toy. hey maybe this explains why they decided to put it in the hands of a kid. They're hoping the'll be a generation who grows up without a laptop.

Client: Apple
Agency: TBWA Media Arts Lab
Song "Go" by Louis The Child

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Dabitch's picture

In what magical city do these people live where it looks like Brooklyn but a kid can ride a bike around the whole place alone, carrying an expensive gadget that they don't get robbed of or forget on the counter of a deli?

I'll bet you cold hard cash that the person who wrote this has no kids, but vivid false memories of their own free roaming childhood in the early 90s, which is what this looks like - helmet and all (us seventies kids had no helmets)

michael's picture

How does this kids not know what a computer is? My youngest is 7 and she knows what one is. Most kids would say “it’s not a computer, it’s an iPad!”

Dabitch's picture

So would mine, even when much younger. This strategy is a little forced.

AnonymousCoward's picture

The kid’s comment at the end is blindingly stupid. I cringe every time.

AnonymousCoward's picture

This is one of the most stupid ending comment of all time.

HattyFlanagan 's picture

It's beyond belief that someone who regularly uses a computer and is probably surrounded by them for most of the day doesn't know what a computer is, regardless of age. Computation device; one of the most revolutionary and widespread technologies of the age we live in. You can't walk 2 steps in most places without encountering them.

I can't imagine anyone actually relating to this tag line. It's like if she was wearing a beanie, and someone goes "Nice hat!" and she asks "What's a hat?" How is that even possible--unless her secret backstory is that she's an alien from outspace that just landed here a few days ago, and she was stuck in the immigration office for most of it answering questions and hasn't had a chance to learn all the basic words yet. That I totally understand. Could we please get that commercial instead?

Changing the word "computer" to "laptop" would also make much more sense.

I imagine this ad was created by someone from an older generation who loves to rag on millenials and under. It just makes young people look dim and careless, which is hardly true at all.

Apple-Fan's picture

Apple ads are either really really great or meh, but this one is actually annoying. Good job, creating the first genuinely annoying apple ad. I hate that kid.

DarkChylde's picture

Two things...
1. Apparently, Apple forgot they sell computers.

2. I hate people who use a tablet to take pictures.

Doesnt matter's picture

Smug little curly snatch. Would have liked to see a car run that bike down. Whats a computet? So fuckin annoying.

Alright's picture

Apple just wants to challenge the definition of personal computer and switches those people wandering in iPad and PC.
I agree iPad Pro is useless. It seems like nobody in ad agencies knowing its target market.

victor 's picture

Iv never tried a apple product but have seen them in the store to me a computer is a computer. And i see a lot of comments people saying bad things about that girl about they hate kids and stuff they must be sex offenders.

Dabitch's picture

This is an ad for the iPad, not a computer.