Apple – 1984

Posted by admin on August 3rd, 2007

Title: 1984
Client: Apple Computers Inc. (now Apple Inc.)
Advertising agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day
Copywriter: Steve Hayden
Director: Ridley Scott
Creative director: Lee Clow
Country: London
Heroine: Anya Major
Big Brother: David Graham

“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.

Dialogue:

Big Brother: “Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory thoughts. Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!”

Announcer: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”

Influence

The commercial is frequently voted top in surveys of influential marketing campaigns. For example, Advertising Age named it the 1980s “Commercial of the Decade”, and in 1999 the US TV Guide selected it as number one in their list of “50 Greatest Commercials of All Time”. (TV Guide also listed the commercial as #93 on their list of The Best Moments in TV History; the only commercial on the list.)

The film resurfaced in the late 1990s when Apple made a QuickTime version of the commercial available for download from the Internet. It appeared numerous times on television commercial compilation specials, as well as on Nick At Nite during its “Retromercial” breaks.

At the 2004 MacWorld Expo, Steve Jobs commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Macintosh by starting his traditional keynote speech by playing an updated version of the “1984″ commercial. In this updated version, an iPod, complete with signature white earbuds, was digitally added to the heroine. Attendees were given a poster showing the heroine with iPod as a commemorative gift.

In popular culture

  • Triumph of the Nerds, a 1996 documentary gives a history of the commercial and includes film clips of it.
  • We Be Clubbin’”, a 1998 music video by Ice Cube from the soundtrack to the film The Players Club features a reenactment of the advertisement, with Ice Cube portraying both the runner and the Big Brother character.
  • The 1999 docudrama Pirates of Silicon Valley about the rise of the personal computer begins with Steve Jobs talking to Ridley Scott during filming of the commercial and includes film clips of the commercial.
  • In the 1999 film Fight Club, one of Project Mayhem’s acts of vandalism is the destruction of a display of Apple Macintosh computers at exactly 84 minutes into the film.
  • The episode “Future Stock” from the third season of Futurama includes a parody of the commercial with Big Brother being replaced by Mom, from Mom’s Friendly Delivery Service, with a modified speech containing statements such as “Our enemies shall be eaten by squirrels!” After the female runner smashes the giant television, one of the proles indignantly yells, “Hey, we were watching that!”
  • In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, a 2006 video game, a radio commercial can be heard for a computer called the “Fruit LC”, directly parodying the 1984 commercial.
  • A 2007 commercial for the Tooth Tunes musical toothbrush clearly references the Apple Inc. advert.
  • A song “Bill Gates komm fick mit mir” (Bill Gates come fuck with me) by German band Welle:Erdball samples the phrase “And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984″
  • A parody of the commercial was released in 2006 to promote “Barack Obama”’s presidential campaign, replacing “Big Brother” with “Hillary Clinton”. It is named Hillary 1984. It is the title of the viral video that combines the footage of the 2008 presidential campaign web announcement by Hillary Clinton with the 1984 Super Bowl commercial by Apple Inc. for the launch of Macintosh.

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