Tor Myhren speaks! Apple’s marketing man on a decade of shepherding the world’s most sterling brand (exclusive)

FastCompany: Tor Myhren is going to kind of hate this article. Because it’s about him, not his entire team. Because I want to talk about his shift from agency chief creative officer to leading marketing for the most pristine marketer on the planet, not to mention one of the world’s most valuable companies. Because I want to talk about how he’s been doing it for 10 years in an industry where brands change senior marketing executives as frequently as their socks. And because I want to start with the worst moment of his decade at Apple. At the time, Myhren had a singular focus.

In early 2024, Apple’s VP of marketing communications was sitting with his team, thinking about how they should approach the rollout of the new iPad Pro, Apple’s thinnest and most powerful iPad to date. Myhren, whose job it is to help sell the products of one of the world’s most profitable and beloved gadget makers, zeroed in on an idea. “The idea was about the thinnest product we have ever made, and in the making of it, all I could see was thin , thin , thin ,” Myhren says.

The team ended up releasing a spot in May 2024 called “Crush.” It depicted a collection of creative tools—turntables, a piano, trumpet, cans of paint, a sculptured bust, an old arcade game, a mannequin for fashion design, a writing desk, camera lenses—all piled up in an industrial compactor. Then, to the melancholy tune of Sonny & Cher’s “All I Ever Need Is You,” the objects were slowly and methodically crushed into the iPad Pro. The ad bombed. It went viral for all the wrong reasons, and exposed a major blind spot for Apple.

“Crush” aired in the early days of the AI hype cycle, and the ad fueled fears that new technological capabilities would replace creative professionals of all stripes and lead to massive job losses. Barely 48 hours later, Myhren publicly apologized for the spot and it was pulled. “When the world saw something other than what we intended in it, it was impossible to unsee,” Myhren recalls. Apple isn’t accustomed to making bad advertising. Ever since Steve Jobs and TBW\Chiat\Day’s Lee Clow created the iconic “1984” Super Bowl ad, Apple has been thought of as a world-class brand marketer. “Crush” was both a reality check and a gut punch.

Soon after the ad was pulled, Myhren gathered his team in Menlo Park, and many of the global teams virtually, to talk about it. His message? This wasn’t the end of the world. More important: It wasn’t the end of creative experimentation at the brand. “If we start to play this game with fear, or get soft on our marketing, it’s going to hurt the brand a lot more,” Myhren told his team at the time. The pep talk wasn’t just for show; it was Myhren replanting the flag for how he expected his team to operate. When Myhren started in 2016, Apple was roughly a $540 billion company. Today, it’s worth around $4.3 trillion.

He has overseen the marketing department during a period of hyper-growth for the company. As Apple’s products and ambitions have expanded into new categories like TV, headphones, watches, and services, its marketing efforts have kept pace. Myhren has built his success on ambitious creative consistency, and yet as he enters a new decade at Apple, he’s staring down big changes. In the fall, John Ternus will replace Tim Cook as CEO. At the same time, Myhren—like all heads of marketing—must grapple with AI-driven technologies that are upending traditional marketing and advertising.

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The insights from a key figure in Apple's marketing strategy provide significant implications for the brand/design industry, especially as they navigate new challenges and innovations.