Games - 1984

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"1984" is the title of the television commercial that launched the Apple Macintosh personal computer in the United States, in January 1984.

The commercial aired on January 22, 1984 during a break in the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII. The ad showed an unnamed heroine (played by Anya Major) wearing orange shorts, red running shoes, and a white tank top with a Picasso-style picture of Apple's Macintosh computer, running through an Orwellian world to throw a sledgehammer at a TV image of Big Brother — an implied representation of IBM. The concluding screen showed the message and voice over "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'" At the end, the Apple "rainbow bitten apple" logo is shown on a black background.

Creation

The 60-second film was created by the advertising agency Chiat/Day, with copy written by Steve Hayden and direction by Ridley Scott (who had just finished filming Blade Runner). Creative director Lee Clow was responsible for this and the later Energizer Bunny and Taco Bell chihuahua campaigns.

It was shown to a large audience for the first time in October 1983, at Apple's annual sales conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Based on their initial reaction, Apple executives booked two slots during the upcoming Super Bowl. However, the Apple board of directors was dismayed by the ad and instructed management not to show it and sell the slots. A perhaps apocryphal story has Apple only able to sell one slot and then deciding that they might as well use the other and show the ad. It aired at the first commercial break after the second-half kick-off.

In reality, the reason the commercial was saved from total cancellation was the result of an act of defiance and an act of bravado. According to the book The Mac Bathroom Reader by Owen Linzmayer:

The board hadn't demanded the commercial be killed, nonetheless Sculley asked Chiat/Day to sell back the one and one half minutes of Super Bowl television time that they had purchased. The original plan was to play the full-length, 60-second 1984 spot to catch everyone's attention, then hammer home the message during a subsequent commercial break with an additional airing of an edited 30-second version.

Defying Sculley's request, Jay Chiat told his media director, Camille Johnson, "Just sell off the thirty." Johnson laughed, thinking it would be impossible to sell any of the time at so late a date, but miraculously, she managed to find a buyer for the 30-second slot. That still left Apple with a 60-second slot for which it had paid $800,000.

The decision whether to run the commercial was left to VP of Marketing William V. Campbell and Executive VP of Marketing and Sales E. Floyd Kvamme. In the end, the two decided to run the commercial.

Despite costing $800,000 USD to make and a further $800,000 of air time, the film was originally shown nationally only once. However, it was aired on television one other time. From the book Apple Confidential:

The famous "1984" commercial that launched the Macintosh during the Super Bowl in 1984 is purported to have been shown only once; but to qualify for 1983's advertising awards, the commercial also aired on December 15 at a small TV station in Twin Falls, Idaho, and in movie theaters for weeks starting on January 17th.

Even with this limited appearance, the ad created such a media frenzy that it gained many subsequent free TV airings and print mentions as it was discussed in the media. At the time Nielsen ratings estimated that the ad reached nearly half of all the households in America. These tactics are part of what made the commercial so influential in marketing circles; it is now seen as the first example of event marketing, and is popularly credited with starting the trend of yearly "event" Super Bowl commercials.

Source material

The commercial was influenced by the book "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell. The dystopic future and the Big Brother figure both stem from this novel.

Setting

The heroine wears orange shorts, red running shoes, a white tank top with a Picasso-style picture of Apple's Macintosh computer, and a white sweat band on her left wrist and a red one on her right. She is carrying a large sledgehammer and running quickly through a dystopian, industrial scene chased by four security guards.

The guards wear black, paramilitary uniforms and helmets with visors covering their faces. They are armed with large night sticks.

She is running towards a large hall filled with people with shaved heads, sitting on benches facing a large video screen. All the audience members appear to be male. At least one child is among the viewers.

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Games - 1984

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