Apple withdraws commercial after boycott call

For the second time this year, Cupertino has had to pull the ripcord and stop the broadcast of an advertisement. Once again, criticism rained down. The Thai government even called on the country’s population to stop using Apple products.

Next Apple commercial withdrawn

It’s not the year for Apple’s marketing team. Just three months ago, after an outcry, they had to pull the ‘Crush Creativity’ commercial that was used to introduce the new iPad Pro at the beginning of May. Now Cupertino is doing another U-turn and pulling another commercial after national opposition arose. This is the fifth part of the popular ‘Apple at Work’ advertising series, in which the company uses humorous short films to show how its products and their functions can be used in everyday work. In them, we always follow the group of four likeable ‘underdogs’ who have to deal with various challenges, such as a stolen MacBook.

The latest spot, called ‘OOO (Out of Office)’, released in mid-July, shows or showed how the underdogs use their Apple devices to work while on the move. In the individual scenes, the protagonists can be seen traveling through Thailand. The way the country is portrayed, however, annoys some people, such as Bloomberg reported.

Negative reactions to advertising clip

According to online reactions from “influencers and internet users”, the advertisement creates the image of Thailand as an underdeveloped country from the past.

The fact that Apple had worked with a Thai production company on the commercial did not appease the critics. Even the spokesman for the Thai Committee for Tourism from the National House of Representatives, Sattra Sripan, spoke out:

The Thai people are deeply unhappy with this advertisement. I encourage the Thai people to stop using Apple products and switch to other brands.

Apple backs off

As a result of these developments, Apple has now removed the commercial from all of its internet platforms. The intention was to celebrate Thai optimism and culture. Apple said in a statement that it apologized for not having fully captured the country’s vibrancy. Since we have not seen the commercial ourselves, we cannot judge at this point whether the criticism of the humorous short film was justified or not.

The Thai government is likely to be satisfied with Apple’s reversal, however, anyone interested can find at least one of the short films from the series called ‘Swiped’ on Apple’s YouTube channel. Are companies like Apple doing the right thing by apologizing and deleting the commercial? Or are many people these days over-sensitive and feeling attacked too quickly?