At the end of the day Apple's video only made Apple look ridiculous. Good on the Thais for being the first to highlight that simple fact.
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Apple Pulls Latest Ad After Criticism Over Depiction of Thailand
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"Filmed"? You mean that drive-by shooting on iPhones, tarted-up in Final Cut Pro? 
This is going to blow your mind, but not everything filmed is entirely accurate to the area it’s filmed in.
You’re welcome @rehkram . Thank you for standing for and promoting respect and decency. 🙏🏽
Do it, and plan it. You need to budget your time and money obviously. Set some lasting goals that you can bring home, like "I want to learn Thai cooking" (Yum actually), "I'd like to study Thai Art", or "I want to investigate Buddhist meditation".
I don't know your age or fitness but take a backpack and good hiking boots with you and get out of the city after a few days. Take public transport and hitch rides to where you wanna go. Be self reliant and flexible, e.g. don't arrive on a cruise ship that restricts your timeline in-country.
Until they figure it out, avoid Apple employees with iPhones attempting to make misguided amateur travel comedy movies
(Sorry for the cheap shot Apple, I just couldn't resist it and, let's face it, you totally deserve it! - Mark)
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Here you go for your reading pleasure: https://thethaiger.com/guides/best-of/top-5-provinces-to-visit-near-bangkok
Please articulate what the “factual truth is.”
I watched the edited version they tweeted and I guess I can see their point, but even this version includes the taxi driver laughing at the American visitors for their terrible choice of hotel. Having personally unintentionally booked fairly terrible hotel rooms in both the United States and Canada, I would be surprised if it isn't possible to make that same mistake in Thailand, but it is great if it isn't.
But then I found the full version at https://www.campaignasia.com/articl...-criticised-for-stereotypical-depictio/497515 and it shows that they cut out the part where the workers' more competent coworker books them into a very fancy hotel, which seems like a good representation of Thailand that they might want to keep in.
They also left out the parts where the Americans first decided that the only place where they would actually be able to get the work done was Thailand, and the even more impressive factory that was able to out-perform their requirements with apparent ease. Also the incredible level of customer service from "Happy" that was well beyond what any normal customer could hope for, or any customer service rep could really hope to achieve. It doesn't seem that strange that Indochina Productions would include some "less American" features of Thailand, as that would seem to be the whole point of not filming in the USA, but I can see how that could be considered stereotyping.
The Americans were the ones portrayed as the least competent in the full ad, so it is weird that the Bangkok Post would show a version they edited down to make Thailand look worse. The original ad was actually much better than I expected (I was thinking "Is that McLovin?"), and I would expect any commercial to make things look bad if you edit out the solution portions. If I were to edit out the conclusion of paper towel ads, they just become videos shaming the clumsy.
That said, it seems Apple should just stick to filming in the USA with American production companies to avoid this kind of risk and expense. Then the people in the city can complain if they show a country scene, and the rural can complain about the urban ads. We are doomed as a species, but at least it is obvious now.
I am vacationing in Thailand now, from Krabi to Bangkok to Pattaya. Sure there are some areas more developed than the others, but the truth is, it is mostly low-tech and underdeveloped with tons of street food vendors with questionable health standards. There are many great hotels, villas, and resorts but outside of that, underdeveloped is written everywhere.
If they depicted Thailand as a modern country and highly developed, I think it'll just be lies.
If they depicted Thailand as a modern country and highly developed, I think it'll just be lies.
Careful now, you might offend others in this thread because you spoke the facts. Facts hurt people these days, evidently.
Political Correctness is the worst thing to happen to this planet… It’s like we’ve had another ice age and the world is covered with snowflakes!
People who complain about everything have serious mental issues and are so pathetic.
Is that you Donald? JD? Aussie Rupert?
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A Thai here, I don’t get offended from the ad. For many years, Thailand is Top 10 most visited country in the world because of content like this and it benefits our tourism industry tremendously.
Apple today issued an apology to Thailand for the way the country was portrayed in a July "The Underdogs" short film, and the video has also been removed from Apple's YouTube channel. In the ad that was released on July 18, the underdogs design team traveled to Bangkok and Rayong, Thailand for a project and were depicted traveling in a tuk-tuk and staying in a rundown hotel.
Thai residents found the depiction of Thailand offensive, and took to social media to criticize Apple for portraying the country with outdated stereotypes. The video made Thailand look "low-tech and underdeveloped" due to the faded, sepia tone and focus on dilapidated architecture, according to the Bangkok Post.
Thai House of Representatives Committee on Tourism spokesperson Sattra Sripan called for a boycott on Apple over the video. "Thai people are deeply unhappy with the advertisement," he said. "I encourage Thai people to stop using Apple products and change to other brands." He said that the tourism committee planned to invite Apple representatives and state agencies to discuss the ad.
Apple in a statement to Bangkok Post this morning said that it was sorry that Thailand was inaccurately portrayed, and confirmed that the ad had been taken down.
Apple worked with Thailand-based film production studio Indochina Productions on the video, and it was shot entirely in Thailand. Since 2019, Apple has released several videos that star the underdogs as part of an "Apple at Work" ad campaign.
This is the second ad that Apple has pulled this year. When the M4 iPad Pro models came out in May, Apple showed a video of a hydraulic press crushing an array of creative tools, which was not well received by creatives. Apple pulled the video, apologized, and said that it had "missed the mark" with the ad.
Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Article Link: Apple Pulls Latest Ad After Criticism Over Depiction of Thail
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I want to go back to Thailand after watching that. lolz.
My fav part is when the guy says 'I'm Happy!'. Everyone in Thailand has a great name.
My fav part is when the guy says 'I'm Happy!'. Everyone in Thailand has a great name.
I have and found the ad to be accurate. Thailand is kind of a 3rd world country
I've been to Thailand many times, and claiming Thailand *isn't* like that just a bit disingenuous. Yes, Thailand is very developed in certain areas and it has some beautiful hotels, malls, streets, public transportation, etc. However it also has (many more) old buildings, with people living in small, cramped spaced. Some areas of Bangkok have no or poor trash collection. I've seen people just pile trash under their houses or in a corner of the street.
The factory represented in the Ad is also a realistic representation of a good, normal type of factory in Thailand.
Is all of Thailand like the ad? No. Can you find every single type of place and situation they portrayed in Thailand, today? Absolutely.
That doesn't mean it's not a beautiful country well worth visiting.
The factory represented in the Ad is also a realistic representation of a good, normal type of factory in Thailand.
Is all of Thailand like the ad? No. Can you find every single type of place and situation they portrayed in Thailand, today? Absolutely.
That doesn't mean it's not a beautiful country well worth visiting.