Curated by Stuart Fogarty stuart@admaticallycom for AFAO'Meara Advertising, Streamabout The Video Agency and Admatic Ireland.
All comments will be posted - promise!
Superbowl Sunday. The annual feast of new specially created TV Commercials. A time to remember the greatest of them all and I was reminded of this one by a post by Ultan Bannon on LinkedIn. Chiat Day's, Ridley Scott's '1984' Apple Mac commercial. It actually annoyed George Orwell's family so much for copyright, they went legal with a 'cease and desist letter'. Apple sales increased by 50% in the days after it aired in the third quarter on Jan 22, 1984. Hated by the Apple Board, it was pushed through by Steve Jobs and Woz. Woz even offered to pay half of the airtime costs. It flagged the introduction of the Mac on Jan 24 that year. The greatest of them all? Yep, for sure.
In 1982 a young Steve Jobs started developing a personal computer with a graphical user interface with 'Woz', Steve Wozinack. He is often the forgotten genius. 2 years later, The Mac was launched with a very famous, masterpiece commercial called '1984' shot by Ridley Scott (who had just completed 'Blade Runner' 2 years earlier). Conceived by Agency Chiat Day and shown in The Superbowl break (during the 3rd quarter on January 22nd). A 900,000 usd spot which then, was huge. It clearly targeted "Big Brother" IBM and perhaps the most influential commercial ever, along with Hegarty's "Grapevine" Levi's commercial. '1984' was only aired one other time on TV so that it qualified for awards.
It borrows a lot, if you ask me....from Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis', a movie I strongly urge you to see. That's not to take away from it one bit. It did exactly what it needed to do and still is in line with the 'Think Different' concept. Individuality. And I personally think it's world class, have no doubt. The Mac came with 128 kilobytes of Ram (it was known as the 'Mac 128' or the "thin Mac"), a floppy drive (!), a mouse, Black and White screen, and with MacPaint/MacWrite and later, MacOffice as the software. A beige case, a handle on the top to make it easy to lift and sold at 2,500 usd. It was convection cooled (rather than by a fan) because it was quieter - a Steve Jobs marketing decision. You can see him present it on Jan 24 1984, on the video at the top of the page.
And it talked! Briefly. A truly world changing day. Happy MacBirthday.
