In his Adweek story, “‘1984′: As Good as It Gets,” Steve Hayden writes about the iconic TV commercial that introduced the Mac:
I was privileged to work on what’s been called the best TV commercial ever, Apple Computer’s “1984,” which launched the Macintosh personal computer. It ran only once on the Super Bowl (in 1984, of course), but established that venue as the platform for big, new branding campaigns from all sorts of advertisers — beer, cars, soft drinks, dot-coms, you name it.
The brief for “1984” was simple: Steve Jobs said, “I want to stop the world in its tracks.”
The ad featured Orwellian images from the book 1984 and was directed by Blade Runner director Ridley Scott. It ended with the voice-over: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce the Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”
(Here is a trivia question for you: What were the other computer commercials during the Super Bowl game? You can find the answers here and here.)
On January 24th, two days after the Apple commercial aired, Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh in Cupertino, California.
