Apple has experienced yet another advertising fumble, but good luck finding any evidence of it.
This week, Apple posted and abruptly deleted a 7-minute ad on YouTube titled “Convince Your Parents to Get You a Mac,” which showed comedian Martin Herlihy giving a room full of teenagers a presentation teaching them how to persuade their parents to cough up the cash for a MacBook.
The ad has since been seemingly wiped from the internet and is no longer available on Apple’s YouTube channel.
This isn’t the first time Apple has quickly backpedaled on an advertising fumble recently, and arguably isn’t anywhere close to its biggest slip-up. Here’s a look at what you missed in the ad and a few highs (and lows) from Apple’s advertising rollercoaster.
Apple mysteriously removes controversial MacBook ad
This weekend, Apple hastily removed a 7-minute ad from its YouTube channel less than 24 hours after the video went live. Titled “Convince Your Parents to Get You a Mac,” it was an uncanny cross between an awkward skit and an unironic instruction manual for teenagers to persuade their parents to buy them a MacBook.
Apple even posted the “Parent Presentation” slides for teens to duplicate and use. The actual video has been removed from nearly every corner of the internet, but the slides are still accessible at the time of writing. Be warned, the presentation is 81 slides long.
Apple just released a 7 minute video and an 81 slide presentation on how to convince your parents to buy you a Mac for college.The presentation is available on Apple’s website as a Keynote, PowerPoint, and Google Slides file. pic.twitter.com/aMQwvBJntRJune 20, 2025
The whole thing seems like it was probably meant as a meme, but it comes across as a little too manipulative. You can catch it in full in the X post above, one of the last few places the ad has managed to stay online.
Ironically, MacBooks are already considered among the best laptops for students, and considering iPhones are overwhelmingly the most popular phones for teenagers, this wasn’t really a demographic Apple needed to do much to appeal to.
This somehow isn’t Apple’s biggest marketing fumble in recent years, either. That honor goes to the infamous “Crush” ad.
The “Crush” controversy: Apple’s best (and worst) ads over the years
When Apple launched its thinnest iPad ever last year, all anyone could talk about was the (literally) soul-crushing ad that followed.
The “Crush” ad was quickly removed shortly after Apple posted it, but it showed a giant industrial press machine physically crushing a multitude of objects used for creating art and music. When everything was destroyed, the press opened again to reveal an iPad Pro.
The ad lives on in a response ad Samsung made with the tagline “Creativity cannot be crushed.”
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That ad is arguably Apple’s most tone-deaf ad to date in light of artists’ widespread fears of AI threatening their jobs. While the “Crush” ad didn’t mention AI specifically, it seemed to imply that one device (or technology broadly) can replace a wealth of creative tools used for self-expression, from guitars to paint to cameras, and by extension, maybe even artists themselves.
Ironically, people do use iPads for creating art. Like the “Convince Your Parents to Buy a Mac” situation, Apple somehow managed to drop the ball while communicating with an audience it had already widely won over.
Both fumbles are perplexing considering Apple’s marketing history. This is the same brand that produced some of the most iconic ads ever, like the long-running “I’m a Mac” series starring Justin Long.
Going back even further, one of the most famous ads ever was Apple’s 1983 Super Bowl ad for the Macintosh 128K. Released in 1984, Apple introduced it in a surprisingly cinematic ad based on George Orwell’s book 1984. This ad was meant as a subtle jab at Apple’s then-rival IBM, but there’s a lot of symbolism to unpack in it. The actual Macintosh 128K isn’t even shown.
Of course, an advertising stumble doesn’t mean MacBooks aren’t good laptops for students. They’re just not the only good laptops for students. If you’re looking for the right laptop for college, you should probably be basing your decision on reviews and lab testing rather than a 7-minute Apple ad anyway.
