10 - Apple (1984 Commercial)

Why 1984 won't be like 1984

This Super Bowl ad started everything for Apple, and more impressively, Apple never shows the product that they are selling. The commercial is inspired by George Orwell's famous book 1984. The video is of the character "Big Brother" giving a speech to an unemotional, obsequious crowd via television. Big Brother is the leader of this dystopic society and wants uniformity amongst everyone. However, a person, dressed differently from everyone else in the group, is running with a sledgehammer towards the screen that Big Brother is being projected on. During her dash toward the screen, she is being chased by the "Thought Police." The runner gets close enough to Big Brother, so she stops running. She then throws the sledgehammer at the screen which destroys it and ends the control Big Brother had over the crowd. After this, the narrator reads off the screen saying "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you will see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'"

The Macintosh was not shown yet because it probably wasn't finished when the ad was released. While the commercial did give a reveal date for the Macintosh, Apple's primary goal was not selling the Macintosh. The purpose was to market Apple as a new company that could rival IBM. Ironically, 34 years later, most of the public has an Apple product, which sort of goes against the message being conveyed in this video. However, the video is simple and very symbolic of what Apple wanted to do in its early stages.

The YouTube video of this commercial has been seen 2,937,122 times, but since it premiered on Super Bowl XVIII (before YouTube ever existed), it has undoubtedly been viewed more than three million times. This advertisement is considered by many to be one of the greatest ads ever made.

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