HISTORY's Moment in Media: The "1984" Apple Ad That Changed Tech Advertising

It was the legendary quot1984quot ad for the Apple Macintosh which would be introduced just two days later And as much as the new computer revolutionized the tech industry and set Apple on its path toward dominance the ad forever changed tech marketing and even helped cement the iconic role of the Super Bowl adApple had essentially invented the consumer personal computer with its Apple II released in 1977 While all other computers until that point were cumbersome and designed for business customers the Apple II took off But in 1981 IBM introduced the IBM PC and the businessmachine behemoth became a formidable competitor in the home computer space At the same time Apple had experienced an expensive failure trying to break into the business market with the Lisa the first computer with a graphical user interface but one that was far too costly and insufficiently powerful Jobs saw that more accessible personal computers were the future Yet IBM and its PC were becoming dominantStill Jobs had been leading a new project in development the Macintosh The first massmarket personal computer with a graphical user interface and a mouse it was designed to be unintimidating and easy to use This was the brief era when Jobs and John Sculley the PepsiCo exec turned Apple CEO were working well together Sculley was an expert at selling consumers products Jobs was a visionary and mythmaker It was the first time a computer would be targeted not to tech enthusiasts or corporate clients but to consumers And together with their ad agency ChiatDay Jobs and Sculley were eager to sell their product as an upstart challenge to IBM39s corporate dominationConveniently the year was 1984 and George Orwells 1984 set exactly the tone this campaign needed An allegorical novel about the evils of totalitarianism 1984 imagines a world in which everyone must think the same thoughts listen to the same rulers live their lives as instructed by Big Brother That formed the basis for Apple39s landmark adRidley Scott who had made Blade Runner two years earlier directed the ad It shows a dull gray industrial landscape with men in shapeless clothes trudging through a tunnel toward a large blackandwhite screen They sit in front of it as a Big Brotherlike figure onscreen drones on about a worker39s utopia of information purity But there39s one burst of color a female athlete dressed in red shorts and a white shirt running toward the screen She39s carrying a sledgehammer and being chased by police First she winds up swinging the hammer then hurls it toward the screen shattering it a devastating blow against a Big Blue monoculture At 50 seconds in the product is finally mentioned quotOn January 24th Apple Computer will introduce Macintoshquot says a friendly voiceover quotAnd you39ll see why 1984 won39t be like 1984quot Two days later at an auditorium in Cupertino California Jobs would at last show off an actual Mac Reports say that when he removed a cloth cover from the new machine there were audible gaspsThe ad was never broadcast again But it39s been talked about for nearly four decades It set the tone for Apple39s unique advertising to come And it showed the world for the first time that Super Bowl ads could be just as important as the gameClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: The "1984" Apple Ad That Changed Tech Advertising

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: The "1984" Apple Ad That Changed Tech Advertising

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Up & Comer Jeanette St. Amant: An Outside-the-Box Finance Role at Sinclair Offers New Opportunities (VIDEO) - By Krista Van Lewen

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