This week, 25 years ago, a company aired an advertisement that would cement that company’s name into the minds of many. It was an advertisement about individuality versus conformism, about light versus dark, about new versus established. It was the most expensive advertisement of its time, and yet, it didn’t even show the product it was trying to sell. After the ad was over, all we knew was that something called “Macintosh” was going to show us how 1984 wouldn’t be like 1984.
It’s the 25th anniversary of one of the most famous advertisements in history. It had nearly been cancelled, and it’s a miracle it eventually aired. Boy, were we lucky it did, because I still find it one of the best commercials any company has ever made.
Apple still employs the same ad agency today, but sadly, they never got any close to the 1984 commercial in terms of quality. I mean, compare the above to the slapstick nonsense of the “I’m a Mac” campaign, and you’ll see just how ridiculous the latter really is.
i’d forgotten how good that commercial was. I remember drooling with envy over my friends mac. in 1985. Playing zork was a sublime experience.
64 KB of RAM, a 400 KB floppy, a tiny B&W display, and an OS barely better than DOS. Sorry – wasn’t impressed at all. The Amiga, release two months after the Mac, had 256 KB of RAM (expandable to 512 KB), an 880 KB floppy, a large color display, and an OS that wasn’t equaled until 1995… for less money than the Mac. Now THAT had me drooling. In 1985.
Well, now I guess I finally get that Planet Express ad in Futurama. Having been born in 88, I kind of missed the boat for that commercial
Ha, yeah – the Futurama parody is great.
“Our enemies will be eaten by squirrels!”
That they mistook who their competitor really has. They had their eye on IBM, but got blindsided by Microsoft.
“That they mistook who their competitor really has. They had their eye on IBM, but got blindsided by Microsoft.”
IBM was clueless too. They thought it was all about the hardware. Turns out they were mostly wrong.
Sure PC companies have made money. But nothing like Microsoft who only has to worry about packaging software, not building computers. Good thing considering the problems they’ve had with the 360.
Fact fans – this isn’t that ad’s 25th birthday at all. That was 15th December 2008. It was aired at one o’clock in the morning on KMVT, Channel 11 in Twin Falls, Idaho on 15th December 1983, in order to be eligible for ad awards. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/15/1984_ad_anniversary/ for details.
Fact fans – this isn’t that ad’s 25th birthday at all. That was 15th December 2008. It was aired at one o’clock in the morning on KMVT, Channel 11 in Twin Falls, Idaho on 15th December 1983, in order to be eligible for ad awards. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/15/1984_ad_anniversary/ for details.
Geek alert! Geek alert! Shields up!
Heh, I just remembered reading the Reg story last year.
For the anti-conformist image they conjure they sure are conformist. You can’t get much more conformity than you can with a Mac.
Not that conformity is necessarily bad, for them it’s a major +.
Edited 2009-01-24 01:54 UTC
But of COURSE mac users are nonconformists! Haven’t you ever heard the saying “all you nonconformists are all alike”? I jest, of course. The real nonconformists are using Linux, but we’re all going to have to move to Syllable if Linux’s popularity keeps growing.
Times change, people change. The 1984 would never work in today’s cynical hasty world. So the Get a Mac commercials are actually more fitting. And by the way, show me any recent computer industry commercial that rivals either 1984 or Get a Mac in terms of impact. There are just none.
Also for those who haven’t seen it, here’s a treat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oGFogwcx-E
It was in fact a disaster. The commercial embodied the Cupertino mindset that confined Apple to a locked in niche. It was the spirit of the disaster that Apple became in the following decade. Jobs was creator, nemesis and then savior, all in this same limited, limiting and restricted culture, and its all down to the cultural spirit embodied in this view of Apple and its users as beleagured small dissenting and to some degree victimized minorities.
the same company produced this gem. A lesson for budding advertisers, try not to insult the people you are selling to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYP1Tjgt1Ao
.. or do current MacWorld Keynotes remind you of that commercial its self?
Wasn’t this also the release date of the Mac? Every source under the sun says 24th Jan 1984 was the Mac’s release date. I was 10. Litterally. It’s my Birthday too :-))