MEDIA BLOG PROJECT

Apple Headphones and an attractive man, what's more perfect? Pedro Pascal. Apple just released this new ad in April of 2025. All while Pedro Pascal's hit show, The Last of us season two is slowly coming out. 

             The ad opens with Pedro looking miserable, maybe leaving a sad breakfast or possibly a breakup. He leaves the restaurant for a sad and snowy town in silence. He takes out the Gen 4 AirPods, starting with a sad song. As he walks, the background characters slowly begin dancing to the beat, following along and slowly changing his surroundings to become an icy world. He gets interrupted by someone asking for directions. Pedro looks further down the street, with car sounds and city noises surrounding him. He sees a happy version of himself in a colorful, sunny world. The ad then fully pivots to the sunny and happy Pedro. He leaves a happy outing and puts in his headphones to an exciting and loud song, turning his world vibrant and made of flowers. His side characters begin dancing and lining the streets for Pedro. Ultimately, Pedro has a ton of dancing for about 2 minutes. The ad finishes by having happy sunny Pedro stare back at sad ice freezing Pedro. Both are looking sad or disappointed without music. Ending with a grin. The cold Pedro walks off with a grin, turning his noise cancellation wrong kind of in his own world. 

Okay, now that you know the ad. Let's dig deeper. This ad was a whopping five minutes. Long yes, however, I was thoroughly entertained. I had gotten wind of it through TikTok. To watch the whole thing (because Pedro is beautiful), I turned to YouTube. The ad was directed by Spike Jonze, which highlights the emotional power of music and features like Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode. As TechRadar notes, the ad shows how “Pascal re-enables active noise cancellation... and suddenly finds himself in a bright red and yellow world,” representing how AirPods can transform everyday experiences.

Now what? It’s a silly ad about headphones, so how does it connect to the viewer? The start, a cold, lonely, silent feeling, changed how he felt based on what he was listening to. Mainly use of pathos. Appealing to the audience's emotions, with these new noise-cancelling headphones, you get to CHOOSE how you feel and how you see your surroundings. By using Pedro Pascal, it appeals to his fans, including me. 

I feel as if storytelling was attempted, but not well executed. By starting off upset after leaving breakfast, the audience can only assume it's either a breakup or that something sad has happened. The sunny and dancing Pedro didn't have much of a story besides dancing and having a better time. So I feel like it’s not here nor there. 

By using Pedro, it appeals to younger audiences, more specifically women. This allowed for it to be spread to TikTok, where I was able to see it, and then to YouTube. I am not really on cable, but with the platform I already have, I think it's a great use of what they have. 

I’d say this ad and its tugging at the heart strings, is really to get across how you can change how you interpret your life, with the help of noise-cancelling headphones. Very similar to many ads, like Secret's deodorant ads, before you're stinky, gross, and embarrassed. Once she puts on her deodorant, life gets more vibrant and happy. 

Taking a few steps back, the target audience. They reached women by using Pedro. By using the brand Apple, they appeal to wealthy people, anyone who likes being the first to try the brand-new thing. They use dancing to appeal to creative and lighthearted people. Pedro, at some point, does a dance that's very popular, “voguing” with the drag community, which could be a way to connect to them. This ad is five minutes long, it's hard for me to say that Apple appeals to one demographic. None of this is super offensive or smack dab on the nose.  I think Apple is doing just fine even without ads, so it might have attempted to connect to certain demographics, however, it doesn't matter.

The ad is strong because its bright fun and sucks the audience in. However, its biggest weakness is that it's five whole minutes long. It felt dragged out, even the fun parts, I thought, “What is going on?” and “Why is this so long?” even though I enjoy looking at Pedro. So I would understand many people finding the ad boring. I do think that because it's so long and the dancing is so crazy, it's hard to forget. 

The ads gained significant attention on social media, with people praising its artistic direction. One viewer described it as an “instant masterpiece,” while another highlighted Pascal's performance, stating, “Pedro, saying ‘you’re perfect’ while staring directly in the camera is not healthy for me.” https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/19/pedro-pascal-ad-airpods-4/ 

I don't think this ad surprised me in many ways, it's pretty stationary for what an ad is, without the product, you're unhappy, and then with the product, life is bright and happy. 

The video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urTfEEsGHds&t=328s

https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/pedro-pascal-dances-apple-ad-spike-jonze/

Emma Alewine

04/28/2025