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KeriVit · Feb 14, 2006, 12:54 AM

My Case Studies in Advertising Design Professor keeps referring to this as the most influential, best, outstanding, phenomenal ad of all time.

It ran once.

he doesn't even own a Mac.

Was it really that big of a deal?

Anyone who was 16 or older at the time that was really affected by it? Why so influential?

Ganesha · Feb 14, 2006, 01:08 AM

Yes. Yes. Nice try, but do your own homework assignment.

Fire Of Zim · Feb 14, 2006, 01:18 AM

I think it was a bit emo.

KeriVit · Feb 14, 2006, 01:22 AM

ACTUALLY, my homework is on Frito Bandito... anyone remember him?

JoshuaZ · Feb 14, 2006, 01:22 AM

Didn't he invent the Frito chip?

Big Mac · Feb 14, 2006, 04:30 AM

The 1984 Commercial is consistently ranked as one of the best commercials of all time, so yes, I would say it unquestionably had a very significant impact.

Moderator · Feb 14, 2006, 09:08 PM

I think its overrated myself. Its most lasting impact is that its been rated the ad with the most lasting impact. What that impact is..I have no idea.

ghporter · Feb 14, 2006, 09:12 PM

The 1984 ad was particularly powerful because of both the times and what was happening in the computer industry at the time. The spectre of "1984" was very much in people's minds then, so the images played well. And EVERY personal computer you saw was the same; a beige box with a CRT on it and a boring, clunky keyboard in front of it. The Mac, introduced with that campaign, broke that mold.

The Frito Bandito was a socially insensitive but very amusing character (voiced by Mel Blanc, by the way). He didn't run for long, but note how many people who were around in the mid-'60s remember him.

wdlove · Feb 14, 2006, 09:20 PM

I enjoyed the 1984 commercial by Apple. Point out the ways of Microsoft.

Sage · Feb 14, 2006, 10:05 PM

Not at the time – it was aimed at IBM.

KeriVit · Feb 14, 2006, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

The 1984 ad was particularly powerful because of both the times and what was happening in the computer industry at the time. The spectre of "1984" was very much in people's minds then, so the images played well. And EVERY personal computer you saw was the same; a beige box with a CRT on it and a boring, clunky keyboard in front of it. The Mac, introduced with that campaign, broke that mold.

The Frito Bandito was a socially insensitive but very amusing character (voiced by Mel Blanc, by the way). He didn't run for long, but note how many people who were around in the mid-'60s remember him.

i can always rely on gh.

Moderator · Feb 14, 2006, 11:29 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

The spectre of "1984" was very much in people's minds then...

Umm. No.

phillryu · Feb 14, 2006, 11:40 PM

Didn't part of it have to do with the ad's visual scope? I don't think many other ads back then were as visually fantastic.

production_coordinator · Feb 15, 2006, 12:29 PM

I think the ad had impact, but it wasn't as amazing as people are making it out to be [don't get me wrong, I think it was amazing... but there have been many such amazing images]. It was a good ad... and it's only getting better with time (here we are... talking about it 22 years later). The MAGIC of the ad was... they played it once... and local TV stations were replaying it... basically, free advertising for Apple.

ghporter · Feb 15, 2006, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by Moderator

Umm. No.

It certainly was where I was. A college town that also happened to be a state capital, Austin, Texas. State and federal government were moving in very unfriendly ways (I should note that both the "militia movement" and the survivalist movements were begining at this point in time, more than partly because of the way the Regan administration was behaving. Ronnie may have done some good things for us through shaking out the economy and all that, but he also turned the Republican party around from one that eschewed big government and interference in personal life into one that was particularly activist in a number of ways, none of which were good for personal liberty. I saw more loss of personal liberty during the period 1982 through 1985 than I have since George W took office, even considering what's happened since 9/11.

Production coordinator, the ad, in its temporal context was exceptionally powerful. The Orwellian issues combined with the LA Olympics (that the Soviets boycotted, by the way) made it very timely, and its imagry made it very striking. Maybe other ads have had more power since then, but I think this one set the bar pretty high. So "magic" is a very apt word for it in my opinion.

Phil, you obviously never saw any of the Levi's commercials in the early 1970s! They weren't just visually fantastic, they were psychadelic!

olePigeon · Feb 15, 2006, 01:30 PM

You have to remember that in the 60s computers were sort of forbidden and the average consumer really didn't have a PC. Just too complicated, ofte even for people in the field. Take IBM's dress code, for example (no, really.) Everyone at the company during that time was required to ware black suite, white shirt, and black tie. No exceptions. IBM really was a hardass and everyone loved to hate them. That's the imagery PCs garnered for themselves. Strict, boring, and intimidating.

Also, you ever wonder why you need three years of Calculus to get a degree for managing a Windows server with a point-and-click GUI? Sure, it's finally changing and schools are differentiating between Computer Science and Information Technology, but those requirements for going into computers were set back in the 60s and didn't change until the 90s! Knowing calculus really helped you because what you did is program those computers. Unless you're a programmer, you can't really identify with the older style of computers. (Incidently, that's how UNIX became so popular. Everyone and their brother sold a compiler for a computer, but often for thousands of dollars and only targeted for universities and big companies. UNIX came with a free compiler and really opened up computers to the hobbyist)

Before Macintosh came out, it wasn't much different than the Rumor mills of today. Anyone who knew anything about computers had heard something about Macintosh. Apple was puting those ads in TIME and stuff with the desktop icons in it and anyone in the computer industry was going nuts.

The commercial was perfect because the moment the whole Big Brother imagery hit the screen, everyone knew exactly what it was about! They knew this was the Apple commercial. The imagery was perfect, the scope was perfect; it had everything to do with Macintosh and IBM, while simultaneously not having anything to do with computers at all! People who didn't know anything about computers or were intimidated by them, could see that commercial and think, "Holy cow, that Macintosh has got to be something to kick IBM in the nuts like that." It was great!

Ridley Scott had just finished with ALIEN and he was awesome, they couldn'tve picked a better director for it.

RobOnTheCape · Feb 15, 2006, 02:30 PM

Though most remember it being played at the superbowl, but I believe it was also played on a station in Idaho or something before the years end. This was to qualify it for the next awards ceremony cycle. Or so I read somewhere.

macaddict0001 · Feb 15, 2006, 07:01 PM

Originally Posted by RobOnTheCape

Though most remember it being played at the superbowl, but I believe it was also played on a station in Idaho or something before the years end. This was to qualify it for the next awards ceremony cycle. Or so I read somewhere.

yes I believe it was on folklore.org.

Kerrigan · Feb 15, 2006, 07:07 PM

It ranks so high because all of these hipsters working in advertising use Macs so of course they say it is the best ad ever.

KeriVit · Feb 15, 2006, 11:07 PM

here's what I got out of the prof today...

Apple bought 3 spots during the Sbowl.
Certain people at Apple did not want to run the ad- Jobs did and fought for it. they were able to sell 2 spots. But, could not sell the 3rd. So it ran.

The reference to 1984 was common, we had all had to read 1984 by Orwell.

IBM was Big brother.

The ad ran more on the news and in public forums than SB.

Apple made SB ads the shizzle.

Apple bought the GUI from Mcintosh. Thus the name (Hey, I'm just going with the prof on this)

Voted most influential ad of all time numerous time - Second- was the fast-talking Fed Ex Guy.

KeriVit · Feb 15, 2006, 11:09 PM

PS- most 20 year olds in my class (I'm older) did not/do not know that Apple, Apple II, came first. The Mac introduced the GUI and eventually, color.
NO CODE, kiddos.

macaddict0001 · 02:53 AM

Originally Posted by KeriVit

here's what I got out of the prof today...

Apple bought 3 spots during the Sbowl.
Certain people at Apple did not want to run the ad- Jobs did and fought for it. they were able to sell 2 spots. But, could not sell the 3rd. So it ran.

The reference to 1984 was common, we had all had to read 1984 by Orwell.

IBM was Big brother.

The ad ran more on the news and in public forums than SB.

Apple made SB ads the shizzle.

Apple bought the GUI from Mcintosh. Thus the name (Hey, I'm just going with the prof on this)

Voted most influential ad of all time numerous time - Second- was the fast-talking Fed Ex Guy.

They didn't buy the GUI from anyone, not to say it was a new idea. The first GUI was from Xerox PARC(Palo Alto Research Centre). Known as Smalltalk I believe it ran on the Star. However the smalltalk system was primitive compared to the macintosh and was no where near ready for release, the macintosh was designed brand new however as all they got was a look at it.

olePigeon · Feb 17, 2006, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by KeriVit

Apple bought the GUI from Mcintosh. Thus the name (Hey, I'm just going with the prof on this)

Voted most influential ad of all time numerous time - Second- was the fast-talking Fed Ex Guy.

Apple got the GUI via a service contract through Xerox PARC. PARC developed the GUI for their Star system. Xerox invited Jobs to take a look becuaes they knew Apple was in the market for something new to replace the Apple ][. Apple later hired PARC employees and started work on the Macintosh GUI.

McIntosh is the name of a brand of apples.

cpt kangarooski · Feb 17, 2006, 01:51 PM

Not quite.

A number of people had been working on better HCI for decades. In the 60's, Doug Engelbart and his group made an interesting UI, invented the mouse to work with it, etc. Some of his team members left and went on to PARC, where they developed the GUI as we now know it (windows, icons, etc.) in the mid-70's, using the Xerox Alto platform they created.

Jef Raskin had been aware of this, having done some UI work as part of his master's thesis in the 60's, and had visited PARC and seen what they had done. He eventually was working for Apple, writing documentation, in the late 70's. When the plans for computers to follow up the Apple II began to be developed, he managed to get approval to work on a machine designed around a UI.

Some other people at Apple became convinced that paying attention to HCI was important, though of course ideas differed on exactly what to implement. In order to get the brass at Apple to support all this, employees who were already perfectly aware of what PARC had helped to get some tours arranged. As part of this, Xerox was given some Apple stock as payment. The Lisa and Macintosh projects both ended up as pretty close successors to some elements of what PARC had been doing with the Alto (and the Xerox Star, which came out in '81), but other PARC technologies such as ethernet or the laser printer didn't get much attention at that time. A number of PARC employees left to work for Apple, feeling that their work had a better chance of getting to market with the latter.

Raskin picked the Macintosh name. At the time, project code names (Macintosh was a code name -- it only became the official name when no one could think of something better) were usually the names of people's wives, girlfriends, or daughters. E.g. the Lisa, the Sara (Apple III), etc. Originally the Macintosh was called Annie. Raskin picked Macintosh because his favorite variety of apples were McIntoshes, and he thought (incorrectly) that changing the spelling would avoid legal problems from the McIntosh stereo equipment company.