UPDATE: May 17, 2024: Following this story’s publication, a spokesperson for BBH USA confirmed Samsung’s “Creativity Cannot be Crushed” ad is running on social channels and does not have paid media support.

Dive Brief:

• Samsung’s mobile division has responded to a poorly received Apple ad that critics called hostile to creativity with a spot of its own, per details shared with Marketing Dive.  
• In Apple’s “Crush!,” a giant press crushes art supplies and instruments to forge the latest iPad Pro. Samsung’s video, “Creativity Cannot be Crushed,” shows a person wandering through the wreckage of what appears to be the aftermath of the Apple ad before picking up a battered guitar and beginning to play with help from a Samsung tablet.   
• Agency BBH USA and filmmaker Zen Pace moved quickly to pull the spot together following Apple’s stumble last week. Apple issued an apology for “Crush!,” which set off a social media firestorm, and scrapped plans to run the creative on TV. 

Dive Insight:

Samsung is taking a shot across the bow at Apple as its competitor tries to recover from a widely panned commercial that rubbed creatives — a big audience for tablets — the wrong way. “Creativity Cannot be Crushed” was executed in a matter of days, underscoring the tight timelines marketers and agencies must adhere to to stay on the ball with fast-moving social media conversations.

Apple has already apologized for “Crush!” and pumped the brakes on some of the media plans behind the creative, which supports its biggest iPad launch in two years. The latest iPad Pro is the thinnest device yet from the iPhone maker, a quality the ad illustrates by depicting a massive metal press smushing an array of objects, including a piano and sculpture, into one compact tablet. 

“Crush!” could be interpreted in several ways, suggesting the iPad Pro contains a world of media capabilities in one place and also potentially referencing the popularity of hydraulic press videos on platforms like TikTok that show industrial machines obliterating everything from candy to spools of yarn. 

But many viewers perceived the spot, which was produced in-house, as an attack on creativity. Sensitivity around art crafted by humans is higher amid the rise of generative artificial intelligence. Apple promotes the iPad Pro as well-equipped for handling AI (as does Samsung for its tablets).

Samsung is using the rare marketing miss from Apple as an opportunity to push its Galaxy Tab S9 series, and positioned its commercial as more than just a dig. The spot follows a musician picking up a beaten guitar from a pile of debris and sitting down near a metal platform that appears similar to the press seen in Apple’s “Crush!” The musician begins to strum a song with help from sheet music displayed on a Galaxy Tab S9. A closing text reads, “Creativity cannot be crushed” and then displays the Galaxy Tab S9 Series branding paired with a plug for Galaxy AI.   

“More than a response, this is a celebration of all creative souls. True artists, makers and creators know that creativity always finds a way,” said Estefanio Holtz, executive creative director BBH USA, in an emailed statement.

“Creativity Cannot be Crushed” currently appears on YouTube and X, formerly Twitter, with captions reading, “We would never crush creativity. #UnCrush.” Marketing Dive has inquired about the media plan behind the spot and will update this story pending a response.