Google's New 'Wicked' Ad Again Takes a Dig at iPhone

JAKARTA - Google has once again launched an ad mocking Apple, this time with a concept inspired by Wicked, the novel adapted into a popular musical and film. The 60-second ad promotes the Pixel Pro 10 by depicting the phone as the "green witch" Elphaba, while the iPhone 17 Pro appears as Glinda, the "good witch."

As usual, the ad attempts to demonstrate the Pixel's superiority over the iPhone. In the opening scene, the iPhone 17 Pro remarks how lucky it is to have the Pixel as a friend. The narrative then continues with the iPhone praising the Pixel for "inspiring" many of the new features now available on the iPhone—features that Google claims the Pixel already had.

Some of the highlighted features include the ability to retouch photos and build a more natural and human-like AI assistant.

Interestingly, towards the end of the ad, both characters suddenly break out into song—and the song used is actually from the musical Wicked, not a parody or a new composition.

This isn't a new style for Google. In 2023, the company released the "Best Phones Forever" ad campaign, a series of five videos showcasing the friendship between the iPhone 14 Pro and the Google Pixel lineup after a long rivalry.

Google also frequently mocks Apple in its promotions—though the results are inconsistent. In 2022, the Google Pixel team took a dig at Apple on Twitter, but were caught using an iPhone to post the tweet.