Today is a momentum day in the history of advertising. It’s the day that the world saw, for the second time*, Apple’s classic, “big brother”, Superbowl ad.
It was a different time on this day 30 years ago when that hit the screen during that game of American football. Computers were slow and not that easy to use. That was changed for some with the release of the apple mackintosh.
I’ve never been a great fan of apple even owning, for a while, a Power PC – who now lives in a computer museum here in the UK. It was that original macintosh that put me off in the first place. a badly ergonomic mouse with one big button
I can’t live without my other apple product that I actually paid for, the Power PC I was given as the owner was upgrading, is the classic ipod. All 160gb of it. A far cry from my original with a minuscule, by today’s standards, 20gb. It has served me well over the years and generations. Little has changed compared to other product lines.
back to the advert. everyone thinks it was shown many times. it has but only on the “100 best advert” type shows. The advert is a simple, unsubtle dig at IBM and less towards Microsoft about being the evil that is big brother as well as saying that they have a new product out and trying to get column inches off the back of it – otherwise know as “free advertising”
Twenty years later the ad was updated to show the protagonist listening to their new product, the ipod.
On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984.”
* It was shown on December 31, 1983 right before the 12:00 midnight sign-off on KMVT in Twin Falls, Idaho, so that the advert could qualify for the 1983 advertising awards
