Apple’s New Formula
“I’m learning to use the Apple for test editing,” said talk-show-host-turned-pitchman Dick Cavett in a 1981 gee-whiz commercial from Venice-based TBWA Chiat/Day for the newly introduced machine. “You can edit right here on the screen ... Amazing!”
Two years later, Apple Computer Inc. was touting its new Lisa model as the “Maserati for Your Mind.” Ad copy boasted that the Lisa has 32 bits of memory, less than today’s advanced video game players. It bombed. Apple roared back with the Macintosh in 1984, launched with a famous Super Bowl commercial that showed a woman smashing a Big Brother image--a symbol of IBM’sBig Blue conformity.
Apple robbed the grave for its latest advertising campaign, also from TBWA Chiat/Day, which uses images of such deceased historic figures as Albert Einstein, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to pitch its computers. The company hopes to convince consumers that it makes the computer for the people who consider themselves creative. The concept, similar to one proposed several years ago by Apple’s former agency, Los Angeles-based BBDI West, has sparked lively commentary on the Internet among Apple users.
“We were promised hard-hitting, aggressive advertising,” said one posting to an Apple bulletin board. “That ad was so hard hitting a feather could have done more damage.”
“I think the ad was great,” said another posting. “My co-workers love it. One had tears in his eyes.”
What do you think? Do the new Apple ads move you to tears. Should the company bring back Dick Cavett? Let us know. Register your opinion by e-mail at adbizlatimes.com, by phone at (213) 237-3341, or by fax to (213) 473-2480. We’ll publish comments next week.
