> Ken Segall did the brilliant “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” spot for the ’96 Super Bowl, which remains one of my favorite spots. It reassured the faithful that good things were coming.
The difference is that in '96, Apple was building an identity that was distancing itself from the anti-Microsoft theme which had dominated the discussion of the early 90's. The Think Different campaign was meant to define the soul of the company.
In 2006, Macs sales are competing head on with PC sales. Apple has an identity. There is no longer any question about what Apple stands for. Short humorous clips by somewhat recognizable and well liked TV personalities that compare features of computers? It's not better or worse, it's simply more appropriate.
I'm confused. Are you implying that the commercial was fan-made? If not, then how does a commercial produced by Apple equate to the tastelessness of their fans?
That commercial was from '96, and the ranks of Apple fans have grown quite a bit since then (Apple wasn't even running a unix back then!) so I'd venture that quite a few current Apple fans never saw (or maybe saw but don't even remember) that commercial. How does that commercial prove that these fans are tasteless?
Good golly, this couldn't be any more topical right now:
We knew that if fax machines could bring down dictatorships, personal computers could do infinitely more. The Big Brother of the spot wasn’t IBM—it was any government dedicated to keeping its populace in the dark. We knew that computers and communications could change all that.
In the '70s, telefax probably was thought of as a revolutionary communications technology because of its relative instancy.
Think of Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author who eventually won the Nobel prize. Once he lost favor of the ruling party, the KGB started confiscating his manuscripts.
His master work, the Gulag Archipelago, consisted of seven parts that he never saw together because the pages were hidden at his friends' places. The book was smuggled in pieces to France to be assembled and printed there.
That was little more than 40 years ago. In that environment, the ability to transmit book pages and images over a telephone wire must have seemed like a remarkable improvement compared to spending years hiding manuscripts in the hope of eventually being able to get them out through someone.
That sentence sounded to me like he was making a reference to something. Just picking fax machines (of all technologies) for no good reason seems arbitrary and strange.
I would pick TV. Revolutions always have a myriad of causes and a myriad of factors that help or hinder them, a technology alone is never enough to bring down a dictatorship. I do think, though, that technologies can help revolutions and maybe even be the one deciding factor that makes them successful.
Take the peaceful German revolution in 1989: East Germans weren’t hungry, they weren’t even poor, they weren’t unemployed and their tyrants were, as tyrants go, relatively mild. But East Germans could watch West German TV and compare, see that West Germans were richer, had more choice, more chances, more freedoms and more attractive holiday destinations. Would there have been the same mass demonstrations without West German TV, without information from the West?
The trigger of the fall of the Berlin Wall itself was of course famously also East and West German TV and radio [2].
[1] Is this a correct usage of “anachronistic”? I got quite confused as to whether it is, searched around and eventually gave up.
[2] In 1989, the East German regime wanted to slowly and in a controlled fashion open the border for their own citizens because of continued mass demonstrations and pressure from abroad. The plan to do so was announced on November 9 at a press conference. Asked when the new rules would come into force, a member of the Politbüro said erroneously that they would come into force immediately. West German TV and radio quickly spread the news that the Wall was open and because of the masses of people coming to the Wall it was actually really open that same evening. Wikipedia has a longer writeup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall#The_Fall
Y'know, I've never thought the 1984 ad was a particularly good one. Your competitor is an evil dictator which has enslaved the world? Your product is a short-shorted blonde hammer thrower who is going to set us all free? Really? Really?
It's just a bit too over the top. Most advertisements try to steer clear of criticising their competitors, much less demonising them. Otherwise you'd get "Buy office supplies from OfficeMax! Because Office Depot is like Hitler!"
Did you read the article? He specifically mentions that the ad wasn't supposed to be targeting IBM, but rather our fears of technology. It isn't surprising that it was seen as targeting IBM (I always thought it did), but it is far more interesting knowing that is wasn't.
This commercial is often held up as the best commercial of all time, but I've never gotten a clear answer to the simple question: how much did it impact sales? They released the Macintosh a few days later and sales exceeded expectations. How much of that was due to a new innovative product and how much to the ad? I know it's difficult to pin a number on this, but I've always suspected that Madison Avenue gets more caught up in the artistry than the ROI.
I'm sure it has had a long term impact given people still talk about it.
I think what the X factor is was that the advertisement was a significant break from what had already been done before in the medium of TV advertising. But feel free to disagree (like you need an invitation) I was only 2 at the time.
And I am sure the pleasant slow motion running of the ample breasted lady had nothing to do with it at all ;)
OK, now I feel old. I was a sophomore in college at the time. I remember winning a a nice bit of cash when the Raiders beat the Redskins, but I don't remember anyone getting really excited about the product. To put things in perspective, the Macintosh cost about $2500 back then, which is roughly $5000 in today's dollar. Even as an engineering student, I only knew a few people with computers - but none with Macs.
I know that there are strong proponents of brand building, and that that commercial did help establish their iconoclastic image. I just don't know whether it translated into actual sales to the degree that it gets lauded. I'm not trying to be a contrarian for argument's sake. I just think that the success of Apple had way more to do with the return of Steve Jobs and the creation of innovative products that people love than it did with a brand building campaign.
On the other hand, it may be hard to judge that from your personal experience as it seems that neither you nor your friends were in the target market. It would make more sense to hear how it affected people with $5k to spend in 1984.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE
My eyeballs just sweated.