Dutch chipmaker ASML is celebrating its 40th anniversary with an ad by Publicis Groupe’s LePub. The two-minute commercial presents a hopeful and expansive picture of technology’s potential, seen through the lens of human accomplishment.
With help from more than 900 computers, Le Pub and production company Chemistry use AI, CGI and various other tricks and techniques to build the final film, called “Standing on the shoulders of giants.”
ASML claims to be Europe’s most valuable tech firm, operating in more than 60 countries. The campaign will run globally, with localised versions in some of its bigger markets including Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea and Germany.
Facebook is also celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Founder Mark Zuckerberg is celebrating at a US Senate hearing where he’s being questioned, alongside the bosses of TikTok, Snap, and X, about tech’s failure to face up to its effect on real human beings.
Le Pub is putting across a much more positive message, but this computer-generated commercial demonstrates the creative limitations of tech in a very different way.
MAA creative scale: 4
