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Apple Pulls Latest Ad After Criticism Over Depiction of Thailand (www.macrumors.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/38892168

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.campaignasia.com/article/makes-the-brand-feel-old-apples-thai-ad-criticised-for-stereotypical-depictio/497515

You can watch the 10 minute video here. It's fine. Nothing's crazy there. It's just focusing on an advertisement for Apple, will a comedy of errors happens...

https://hackertalks.com/comment/4559025

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (3 children)

And here's an archive of the video. Honestly, it doesn't seem that bad, maybe a little insensitive in parts, but they're depicted as being able to solve really complex problems, so that's cool.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Honestly, I was expecting the more standard sex jokes. The fact that they didn't touch anything sexual makes it a high brow media affair from the west.

Pluses in the video:

They could find factories to make their product at scale within 24 hours both times
The internet, and their high bandwidth connections, worked anywhere in the country including the countryside factories

Minus is in the video:

Their luggage got lost at the airport
They used every type of transportation available, except the most obvious, because the art directors couldn't resist a planes trains and automobile homage.
Sepia tone filter on everything
The hotel they booked was hilariously bad

On the whole, I think the positives are great, the negatives are just nitpicking.

I think I've seen all these minuses on other productions and other countries, it's just traveler frustration tropes

Also, this entire video, the travel physically going to places, could have been an email. There's no reason they need to physically go to a factory to negotiate a contract, that's 1970s thinking. But it makes for a good video

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

As someone who has lived in Thailand, I get why Thais were pissed. The hotel, the taxi, the public transport all look like they're from 30 years ago. Yes, you do still find run-down buildings and tuk-tuks in Bangkok today, but it's generally a lot more developed and modern than westerners expect on first arrival. Instead of showing the reality, the creators of this ad went out of their way to portray an outdated caricature.

To an outsider it might seem like nitpicking, but Thais are fed up with being presented this way to an international audience.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I went to Thailand a few years ago. Tuktuks are awesome.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Wow, what an amazingly shitty and boring ad. Why is it so long??

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

That was one of th better commercials I've seen in the last couple decades, I found myself pulling for them.

It was a little silly and over the top, which was the goal. I think they nailed it. But it wouldn't be modern day without offended people running interference.