The world of marketing is known for its savagery. Dare not step into an ongoing, subtle yet butcher like, battle of wit and words. But in the dog eat dog competition, marketers often forget the rules of the ground. They take up intense duping to slay their competitors.
One such LEGEN- wait for it- DARY advertisement was the “Get a Mac’ campaign, a 66 episodes series. Steve jobs indeed always had a fascinating way to put the things that bugged him.
“Why 1984 won’t be like 1984”
The bomb started to tick with the 1984 Macintosh commercial. It began Apple's meteoric rise to consumer product super-stardom. The 60 second Ad only aired once on national television - during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on Jan. 22, 1984 and has been lauded ever since. Adding to the legend of Macintosh, it also established Super Bowl TV commercials as a thing, garnering almost as much PR attention as the game itself.
The commercial begins in grey, with an army of drones marching into an assembly as a Big Brother figure harangues them from a towering screen: “Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives ...” This scenario is straight out from George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, which shows how a dystopian society is kept imprisoned by the state through technology.
“The thought of being controlled by one tyrant, and Orwell’s book, fuelled panic, prompting the nation to think technology was corrupt and would kill society. Technology in the early 1980 s was so new that people were scared. They didn’t know what to expect.” mentions The Mumbrella Asia.
When asked about his prodigal creation, Steve Jobs said, “the brief for “1984” was simple. I want to stop the world in its tracks.”
And why was it never aired again? This is one mystery yet to be solved.
“But, Who Are You?”
“Hello, I am a Mac….. and I am a PC”. But who are you? You are the clueless guy who can’t fathom the implications this phrase had. A rivalry was won after 22 years. In June of 2006, Apple launched a new advertising direction: the Get a Mac campaign — a minimalist white background and a dialogue direct to the camera.
In the first quarter of the campaign, Mac sales increased 12%. By the end of the year, Apple had sold a record-breaking 1.6 million Macs, increasing revenues by 39%. By 2009, when the campaign concluded after 66 videos, Apple was setting new sales records year after year.
How did a 30-second ad become a breakthrough?
Their key ingredient was simplicity. With nothing else in the background to distract the eye, they engaged their target audience which didn't have to be tech-savvy to choose the laid-back young dude ( played by Justin Long) over the portly old dweeb ( played by John Hodgman) The trade-off between the two widgets was very easy to comprehend for the ignorant day-to-day PC user.
They also use attention-grabbing statistics to describe their product like when PC says, scorning “ Well you are the number one notebook on college campuses,” with a cheer-leading squad lauding Mac in the background. Or when a lady adds in one of the episodes that Mac is number one in consumer satisfaction.
Adding tongue-licking humour to make the series more about entertainment and less about marketing.
But the award-winning strategy was how they tackled the ‘Dilemma’. The dilemma wasn’t PC vs. Mac. It’s about becoming — what kind of person do you want to be? Do you want to be stodgy and resistant to change? Or do you want to be at ease with the technological revolution? This deep dilemma gives this campaign authenticity. We got the pleasure of watching the way that the two choices interacted with each other. As they did, we got the experience of deciding for ourselves which character felt best.
This campaign doesn’t say, “Buy a Mac and you’ll get entered into a draw to win something that’s not very good.” It says, “Buy a Mac and you will become something.”
“Hello, I am a Mac… and I am a PC.” But, Who are you? You are the guy who would buy a Mac over a PC.