Apple has debuted a new television advertisement for iPad Air, titled “Your Verse Anthem,” on U.S. network and cable television broadcasts.
Amid shots of iPad Air being used in a wide variety of situations, the voiceover, Robin Williams’ English teacher John Keating from the film Dead Poets Society, reads:
We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering — these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love — these are what we stay alive for.
To quote from Whitman: “O me, O life of the questions of these recurring. Of the endless trains of the faithless. Of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer: That you are here. That life exists and identity. That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
“That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
What will your verse be?
Direct link to video here.
MacDailyNews Take: As with Whitman’s work, so goes Apple’s: Passionate, intuitive, affecting, and lasting.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
This ad is destined to be a classic.
yes it is Steve h.
In weeks (one or two), Samsung copies.
There was a Samdung in Nantucket…
How’s that for poetry?
‘…Nantucket,’
Hmm, a tricky one to rhyme without lapsing into obscenity!
Could it be that Apple’s advertising department has come out of it’s coma!
Tim and the Apple board, it is about time!
Very nice indeed.
Best ad since 1984.
Whoa. I’m betting Apple airs this during the Superbowl. Incredible ad.
Robin Williams
The voiceover is from the film Dead Poets Society.
Yes it is. And being an incredibly famous movie, i figure most will recognize that voice (ahem) anywhere. I’m amazed what Apple has done with it. Wow. This ad blows me away.
OSU Marching Band. TBDBITL Go Bucks!
Beauty!
These ads are fine but would it really hurt to actually have the odd ad that mentioned or demonstrated something about the superior technology and ecosystem?
I agree; commercials today are totally non-informative. Half the time you don’t even know what the heck they are selling. Car ads are some of the worst (although perfume/cologne stink too), showing the vehicles either barreling along a winding road on the ocean coast or blasting through a metropolitan city with no other vehicles on the streets. As for this one, I can’t stand Robin Williams so I think rather poorly of it. We need to quit worshipping mechanical and electronic devices. Let the negative votes begin.
This is one of best Apple ads I’ve ever seen. It’s very aspirational and inspires you to explore your imagination. No one is “worshipping” devices…that’s just a silly argument. This Ad show how an Apple Ipad can augment the creativity already inside us. All naysayers and haters of this beautifully done Ad don’t have any creativity to cultivate….that’s why they hate…
So, I don’t care for the commercial therefor I have no “creativity” and I’m a “hater”? Wow, I’m surprised you didn’t throw in “bigot” and “redneck” while you were at it. The only thing I hate is the idiotic, conceited and juvenile attitude you display.
You wrote….So, I don’t care for the commercial therefor I have no “creativity” and I’m a “hater”?
Answer… Yes- because your conclusion to why you don’t like it was no rational critique of the Ad. Worshipping our devices have nothing to do with the….the fact that this argument goes way over your head says everything about you
You’re an idiot.
Sorry, you’re just way out of your depth, here. The problem with the “superior technology and ecosystem” approach is that it’s how you advertise laundry detergent. That approach essentially says, “Ours is better and here’s why…” Anybody can (and does) say it, so it’s a meaningless, forgettable snooze-fest, and it’s not AT ALL how Apple should advertise its products.
Advertising Apple’s product’s is about *reaching * the viewer, making an emotional connection, planting a seed. The viewer comes away thinking, “Wow, that was amazing. I want to be a part of that!
Apple isn’t selling laundry detergent. They’re selling the freedom and power to create, whether it’s music, photography, music, poetry, or ‘business’.
This ad is outstanding!
@ Bad Religion
Wow! Thanks for your illuminating dissertation. So much said, in just three words. You truly are a master of incisive repartee.
Takes one to know one.
You wrote….So, I don’t care for the commercial therefor I have no “creativity” and I’m a “hater”?
Answer… Yes- because your conclusion to why you don’t like it was no rational critique of the Ad. Worshipping our devices have nothing to do with the Ad….the fact that this argument goes way over your head says everything about you
You’re still an idiot.
I agree. We do need to stop worshipping mechanical and electronic devices. Well put.
@Bad Religion
@Hiram
I know its hard but somehow… find a way… to turn off your left side of the brain – really just for a small amount of time – see the world in color…
The colors of a rainbow or just pink?
Yes, that’s it! just mention a bunch of specs and put a bunch of text on the screen like Microsoft or Android sellers do to try to convince that crowd to buy Apple products. It is really only about the specs, you know.
Hiram
“would it really hurt to actually have the odd ad that mentioned or demonstrated something about the superior technology and ecosystem?”
The purpose of ads is to sell. Moving emotionally is stronger than infomercials. Besides. I think it does tell you a lot about Apple. I personally believe that it reflects Apple’s values, and so this ad actually tells the viewer more about the iPad than any spec sheet might.
Regards!
Actually, I guess this ad does in a way. I would wager that some of those applications are not cross-platform (ecosystem) and utilize features made possible with the A7 (technology), so, using them in a real world context BUT with the emotion that comes with the voiceover leads to a more powerful commercial.
Just having features in a bulleted list doesn’t engage the viewer.
Actually, the ad does just that. In every scene an iPad is shown doing what it can do and the myriad of ways it is being used. This goes to show you how everyone gets caught up in the powerful emotional message of the ad and lets those subliminal yet obvious details of the very product slip by.
An example of advertising at its very best and most eloquent. Why? Apple = Lofty Ideals… and the tool to help you get there.
Lots of references to the Japanese in this ad, interesting!
This is one of best Apple ads I’ve ever seen. It’s very aspirational and inspires you to explore your imagination. No one is “worshipping” devices…that’s just a silly argument. This Ad show how an Apple Ipad can augment the creativity already inside us. All naysayers and haters of this beautifully done Ad don’t have any creativity to cultivate….that’s why they hate…
I love hamburgers and hotdogs but poetry to me sounds like eating fou fou French food. I don’t understand it and I don’t like it. Anyone reading poetry sends me to sleep immediately. I’d rather get a root canal than suffer through a poetry reading. It’s just stringing together rhyming nonsense if you ask me.
ˈfiləˌstēn,-ˌstīn/
A person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts, or who has no understanding of them.
synonyms: uncultured, lowbrow, anti-intellectual, uncultivated, uncivilized, uneducated, unenlightened, commercial, materialist, bourgeois
I do not care for poetry as such either, but boy dear BLN, you must be shallow……….
@Ballmer’s left nut
little Troll – go suck you thumb in another corner!
It’s got to be satire, right?
“I love hamburgers and hotdogs but poetry to me sounds like eating fou fou French food. I don’t understand it and I don’t like it. Anyone reading poetry sends me to sleep immediately. I’d rather get a root canal than suffer through a poetry reading. It’s just stringing together rhyming nonsense if you ask me.”
____________________
Well I guess it’s a good thing nobody asked you.
If You Ask Me
I love hamburgers
and hotdogs
but poetry to me sounds
like eating fou fou French food.
I don’t understand it
and I don’t like it.
Anyone reading poetry
sends me to sleep
immediately.
I’d rather
get a root canal
than suffer through
a poetry reading.
It’s just stringing together rhyming nonsense
if you ask me.
—–Ballmer’s Left Nut
Trolling Poetry WITH Poetry. Well played, BLN.
By the way what the f*** is Dead Poets Society? Is it a society for classroom nerds? Never heard of it.
Res Ipsa Loquitur.
Zeke,
This is the best comment I’ve ever read on MDN. Well done!
Tamdiu dicebam
Don’t you mean Hi-Res Ipsa Loquitur?
Sometimes I really have to wonder about BLN. Is he kidding, or seriously deranged, or just ignorant? Today is one of his spooky days. He’ll be all better tomorrow.
You can’t know that. He is not predictable. When he exhibits a clipped delivery and foul mood, as many of us do, he may still unexpectedly turn expansive, even generous. It will depend on the flow of ideas, of energy, in the moment. I think it is fair to say he is an original: not always right, sometimes very right, and more interestingly, someone who visibly evolves. I’m glad that you care, Derek.
hannahjs, your response was measured, well-written, even dare I say, poetic.
Balmer’s left nut’s facade of notability—gained only through his expropriation of Apple’s logo and his reference to the CEO of Microsoft, combined with the mild shock attendant with his juvenile reference to male reproductive components—far exceeds anything he has to say.
Which is to say (to use an expression from Texas), when it comes to the art of exchanging thought here at MDN Comments, <a href="
” rel=”nofollow”>he’s all hat, no cattle“>.
Bipolar behavior ≠ evolution. It’s just behavior. Sorry dear goddess.
He’s Zune Tang’s former student who still doesn’t live up to the master of the absurd’s occasionally brilliant, yet mostly tiresome shtick.
The great Zune Tang® was always on point, always in character.
Can the same be said of BLN? No. So huh?
Would have been better if it hadn’t been the audio from the movie. It sounds like it’s coming out of a tin can.
Samsung to follow with an ode to Rube Goldberg .
Samsung to follow with an ode to Pee Wee Herman.
Apple is on a roll with their advertising. 🙂
Does anyone know what the music in this ad is? Or was it made especially for the ad? It sounds like Phillip Glass – just wanted to see if anyone knew
I’m pretty sure it is indeed Philip Glass. The song is ”Opening” from the album ‘Glassworks’.
I apologize, I didn’t watch the video. Not sure if it’s Philip Glass. Although, I’m sure I heard the song I mentioned on a commercial during the Super Bowl and I’m attempting to find it!
The song is from the original soundtrack of the movie “to the wonder”, song title is “awareness”, by Hanan Townshend
samsung has their own way of selling things:
They don’t even have enough brains to focus the camera on the girls. 🙂
That really made me laugh…not the absurd video…that’s just sad…but your noticing that they focused on the dweeb dancing as they rip off another song, already destined for the dustbin of history, and ignore the ladies…as he sings “may- ga- picksell cam Ra!” The thing about Apple advertising is that it has ALWAYS been about the aspirational. But what’s genius about the way the pricing, marketing and manufacturing work together is that people may gripe about the price…but it’s STILL within their reach…even the pro machines at the high end. Compared with what they used to cost and do…it’s crazy how cheap they are. For $13,000 you get a machine that ten years ago would have cost you nearly ten times as much. LOOK at your iPhone…it’s an “insanely great” device. Yes, comparisons between imitative devices is natural, but Apple has far more than just cachet and an eco system. They have a CULTURE that forms a support system and a way of knowing that you can count on your device now and in the future. Apple’s ad is really about the place technology takes in our lives to make them better. It’s their service to us…not our worship of them or the technology they represent.
“ScamScum Style!” Horrifyingly crass. A form of torture. Violates the Geneva Convention. And I must admit that the term ‘Hee Haw’ comes to mind. Sorry.
Do you think Samsung paid any royalties or otherwise legally licensed the music for this?
Gosh but that is awful, but pretty much what you can expect from 3rd World (non-white) people.
for clarification:
please note I posted the video for information’s sake to contrast the approaches of the two companies and not to denigrate Indians. Blame Samsung not India.
For example if Apple was to do an ad showing people enjoying bollywood (which I occasionally watch myself) : Apple would put a snippet in (like in the ‘Verse’ ad above) with people maybe filming a show with their iPads or choreographing it. Samsung’s approach is just a matter of ‘bad taste’ just like their USA S4 launch angered a lot of feminist’s with their ‘dancing bimbos’.
Earlier in life I lived in Asia for years: had plenty of Indian friends who were smart etc, attended their festivals like Deepavali, Thaipusam etc. Asia has got good video and cinema present and past (e.g Japan’s Kurusawa), it’s just Samsung’s itself’s lack of taste ( as paraphrasing Jobs when he talked about Msft : “they just just don’t have taste” )
I am a visual artist and I use my iPad daily to research something I’m painting, to photograph my daily progress on the painting, and finally to post my finished work on the website. iPad is a must have tool!
Did you not get the memo from the techmedia that anyone who uses an iPad as a camera is a just target for mockery?
Engineers write poetry too. Engineers also use their iPads for work. They also use their iPads to read books, listen to music, and watch videos. Oh yeah, engineers use their iPads to create art from their photos too. 🙂
Engineers like iPads because they always do what they are supposed to do and last a long time. We think about our work and creations when we use our iPads and don’t think about the device we are using. We like that a lot.
I have seen a mathematical proof that was poetry. Cf: Proofs from THE BOOK by Aigner and Ziegler.
Second Edition?
The second was the edition I have, which added three more sections. Now I’m informed it’s up to fourth edition! I think they’re really on to something — it’s easy for textbook authors to drive up the edition count forever, as they have captive audiences in classrooms. But this is not a textbook at all. I use it as a coffee table book, similar to Paintings in the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries, but considerably lighter!
“I use it as a coffee table book …”
There are better ways to level a wobbly table.
What will my verse be?…
Hmm…
There once was a man from Nantucket…
Dull. Boring. I didn’t watch it twice. Any good Ad I watch multiple times.
Whatever your verse may be, remember: you didn’t do that.
Hope I am not the target audience for this one, I did not like it all. I like the other voice that I’ve heard recently in Apple ads more than Robin Williams.
nor I, it was gooey…the iPad Air “Pencil” as was brilliant.
It’s trying to appeal to the shmucks who think that just owning an iPad makes them artistic and enlightened, when all they do is play Candy Crush and Angry Birds on the thing. And the voice of Robin Williams fits an Apple commercial about as well as that of Fran Drescher.
perfect.
I PAD AIR COMMERCIAL: “Of cities filled with the foolish”….someone want to tell me why Apple decided to show a
WOMAN IN CHURCH for that line. It must have been planned, it must have been discussed, it must have been on a storyboard before shooting….It’s amazing how so many take so many shots at God fearing men and women….DOPES!