In Apple’s newest ad, its Mac mini is a muscly bodybuilder, a donut-spinning race car, and a rocket ship blasting off. Every one of those characters was made out of clay.
The spot, which debuted on August 25, was created by TBWA\Media Arts Lab (MAL) (a bespoke global agency that partners only with Apple) to mark the launch of the new Mac mini, which is the company’s line of screenless desktop computers. The $899 device runs on the M6, Apple’s first 2-nanometer chip, which significantly improves storage, graphics, and AI performance.
In just two days, the spot introducing the new product has amassed more than 16 million views on YouTube, while an accompanying behind-the-scenes video has hit a whopping 188 million views on Instagram.
To capture the concept of the Mac mini’s small stature (it measures just 5 inches by 5 inches) but mighty capabilities, the teams at Apple and MAL decided to reimagine the computer as a series of tiny characters with outsize personalities. And, to keep the human craft behind the project at the forefront of viewers’ minds, no CGI or AI was used for the animation. Everything seen in the film, from the characters themselves to the expressive motion lines, was physically built out of clay and animated in stop-motion.
Animating the Mac mini
Creating the Mac mini spot took nine weeks from start to finish, and its animators were working on a deadline to have the ad ready for the product’s launch date. Despite the time crunch, they didn’t cut any corners when it came to practical effects.
To build all the miniature set pieces, a team of animators used soft, malleable clay, oven-bake clay, medium-density fiberboard, and two-part epoxy putty. While on set, animators created every effect by moving, carving, and shaping the props by hand. The effort included building a tiny clay keyboard, camera, and whiteboard; designing a fleshy brain for the Mac mini; and capturing believable puffs of smoke with clay.
Each scene required its own artistic technique: In the opening bodybuilder section, for example, the muscle shape was created using 3D sculpts, which were printed and used as molds. Actual clay was pressed into the molds to make the shapes seen on camera, supported by internal armatures that helped maintain the poses between frames. Because the bodybuilder is shown progressively beefing up during the spot, the team built arms and legs of different sizes, which were then hand-carved to achieve the transitional frames.
The only digital work in the spot involved removing rigs and performing minor cleanups, which is standard in stop-motion production. Any blips or imperfections ultimately add to the spot’s charm. By leaning on practical effects, it manages to convey the Mac mini’s computing power while also emphasizing the role of the human user’s creativity.
What the Mac mini says about Apple’s ad strategy
Apple’s advertising and marketing strategy has been going through something of a renaissance lately, and it’s pulling on two key threads that come together in the Mac mini spot.
First, the brand is going all-in on human craft in its advertising. That means handmade props, like the glass pieces used for its Apple TV intro animation; nostalgic fake products, like the Apple-branded blush used on the brand’s TikTok; and even puppets and physical sets, like the setup for its holiday commercial “A Critter Carol.”
As AI-generated imagery increasingly saturates our digital lives, Apple is realizing that there’s a major advantage to investing in practical effects, and it’s demonstrating that effort to audiences using behind-the-scenes content (which, in this case, seems to be even more popular than the spot itself). Other brands, like Disney, have recently adopted a similar approach.
Second, Apple has been steadily injecting a bit more pizzazz into its brand personality over the past few months. In March, the brand introduced a new TikTok strategy that clearly targets younger users by combining trending aesthetics with Apple’s high-design point of view; that same month, it created a TikTok brand character called Finder Guy that became a fast favorite with Gen Alpha and Gen Z.
The Mac mini spot takes a taste of that TikTok persona and blends it with Apple’s craft-forward advertising approach. And so far, audiences seem to approve. On Apple’s design-centric Instagram account, @helloapple, the top comment under the behind-the-scenes video reads, “In a world full of ai commercials, thank you for this apple.”