On January 22nd, 1984 during the live Super Bowl in America, had the highest ever viewership for any television programming. The 3rd quarter break began the screen fades to black. A new ad starts in black and white with hundreds of emotionless men marching down at you. It ends with, “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” This story is about the ad that changed Apple and, indeed, changed advertising forever. Steve Jobs always believed it was better to be a pirate than to be in the Navy. That is perhaps why the pirate flag always flew on top of a particular Apple building. It was the one in which Apple was building what Steve Jobs believed was going to be revolutionary. It would change computing completely – The Macintosh. The Apple II was already facing stiff competition from IBM. In fact, on 19th October 1983, while the Macintosh was still a work-in-progress, the BusinessWeek magazine carried a cover story that said, “The winner is IBM”. As they readied for the launch, Steve Jobs called Steve Hayden, the copywriter from the agency Chiat Day – a second-tier agency that used to support Apple in those days. Steve Jobs took Hayden through the features of the computer. What it could do, and then said, “I need an ad that will make the world stop on its track. Do whatever it takes”, and the agency went to work. Towards the end of the allotted time, the agency still hadn’t come up with anything. That is when someone in the team chanced upon a rejected script that they had presented to Steve Jobs but was rejected. The script said, “Why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” At that point, Steve Jobs felt this was too grandiose an ad for what he thought was a mediocre machine, the Apple III. But now it was different. This was 1984, and George Orwell was on everyone’s mind. And indeed, the Macintosh felt like this was a revolutionary machine. So, the Chiat Day team decided to pitch this to Steve Jobs. But before they went in, they wanted to give it all they had. And so, they approached Ridley Scott to direct the film. Ridley Scott had just made a name for himself by directing two fantastic films, Alien and Blade Runner. Ridley added a lot to the script. He made it very dark. And he replaced what was a baseball bat in the script with a sledgehammer. That was possibly the most iconic shot in the ad. When the script was presented to Steve Jobs was amazed! He and John Sculley, ex-Pepsi, both loved the film. They decided that if they had to give it all they had and make the world stop on its track, they must premiere it at a massive event. The Super Bowl was chosen not just to be shown once but twice. The film was shot in London, and when it was first premiered at an Apple Sales conference in early December in Hawaii, the salespeople at Apple and their distributors gave it a two-minute standing ovation. And then a derailment almost happened. On 10th December 1983, there was an Apple board meeting. The film was screened. When the lights came on, almost all the directors in their late 50s and 60s had their heads in their hands. They looked at John Sculley and said, “You are seriously not going to put this out, are you?” Sculley said, “Why not? It’s a great film!” The board had always thought that Scully was the adult supervisor for the errant Steve Jobs. They were aghast that he was siding with him. The board ordered Scully to sell the 3 minutes of advertising at the Super Bowl and write off the $500,000 paid for this film. A few days later, Steve Jobs called Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple and his long-time friend and said, “Come over to the Macintosh building. I have something to show you.” Woz recollects this meeting in a later interview; he said, “I was dumbfounded! It was better than any science fiction trailer.” That’s when Steve told him that the board had ordered him not to air the film in the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl was an expensive proposition because 60 seconds in a Super Bowl meant $800,000. Steve Wozniak’s immediate reaction was, “I’ll pay 400,000 if you put the other half.” The co-founders taking an independent decision was impossible. Apple was now a listed company, and had a board. But the endorsement from Steve Wozniak was a big thing for Steve Jobs. He would now have to go against what the board had dictated. However, finally, it didn’t come to that because Chiat Day could not sell all 3 minutes. They sold 2. A decision needed to be taken – would they show two 30-second commercials of Apple Macintosh products and benefits or the 1984 film? At the last minute, Steve Jobs decided to show the 1984 film. And the rest, as they say, is history. Apple never put that ad on the air commercially ever again. But TV station after TV station, just after the Super Bowl, was commenting on the ad and showing it. Calculations show that Apple got close to $45 million worth of free advertising during that period. #Thinkdifferently #bigbang #conviction #courage
