With all the taste of a Trump designed White House Ballroom, the company has wheeled out her serene, unmistakable voice to sell its latest round of shiny aluminium rectangles, all while twisting her words into self-serving mush just a few weeks after she died.
The ad, titled “Great ideas start on Mac,” tries to position Job’s Mob’s overpriced laptops as the birthplace of human creativity. It features Goodall’s voice declaring: “Every story you love, every invention that moves you, every idea you wished was yours, all began as nothing. Just a flicker on a screen, asking a simple question: What do you see?”
Apple insists that quote was all about Jobs' Mob's latest shiny toys and jacked it into one of its adverts.
Apple’s YouTube blurb ladles on the treacle, promising that “from groundbreaking discoveries to award-winning films, all of it starts from nothing. Endless possibility is waiting, what will you make with it?”
The timing is questionable, to put it mildly. Dr Goodall died on 1 October at the age of 91, just weeks before the ad appeared. She was a towering figure in primatology, often called the world’s preeminent chimpanzee expert, and she spent decades advancing conservation and animal welfare. It appears that Apple paid for her quote in an add run and was not going to let her death get in the way of releasing it.
As a result, Apple has now turned her into a tasteless ghostly voiceover artist for the MacBook Pro’s latest facelift.
Even more galling is that the “flicker on a screen” line has been yanked out of context and repurposed as a sales hook for the new M5 MacBook Pro, which lands in stores this week. It is hard to see this as a “tribute” rather than corporate necromancy.
Tim Cook was quick to issue a heartfelt eulogy when Goodall died, praising her life’s work. Yet a fortnight later, his marketing team apparently decided the best way to honour her memory was to turn her legacy into a pitch for aluminium laptops with better bezels.
For a company that loves to preach about “values”, Job’s Mob seems content to raid the words of a dead humanitarian to push its latest product refresh.
