Do you remember the famous 1984 Super Bowl ad for the Apple Macinstosh? If you’re too young to know about it, or too old to remember it, here is a link to the ad.
In advertising, context is everything, so allow me to set the scene. In the 1970s Apple launched the personal computer revolution with their Apple II. IBM came along with the PC in 1981 and quickly came to dominate the market for personal computers. Stephen Jobs famously decided to fight back with the Macintosh. The ad supposedly shows the unthinking masses, blindly shuffling behind IBM, their brainless leader, set free by the dramatically different Macintosh.
The ad ran only once. Ever. It’s the single ad which made Super Bowl ad watching what it is today, one of the reasons it has become an icon in the advertising world. It has to be that–it couldn’t be the effectiveness of the ad (you know, the reason ads supposedly exist) because the Mac was a commercial flop: it didn’t even make a dent in IBM PC sales. And, lest you regard me as biased, I was one of the early Mac fans and actually had both a PC and a Mac on my desk (us geeks are wont to do things like that).
Many tout the Mac ad as innovative, it being run only once and all. Those people don’t know their history, because another ad, 69 years before, did that… and arguably is even more famous, because that one was pioneering in many ways. It was also more effective, because it cemented the reputation of the product it touted… without even mentioning it. Enough, already, you may be saying, showing us the stinking ad, and then tell us what was so special about it.
It appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, one of the most popular magazines of the day (think of it as Facebook for the 1910s):
(If you can’t read the copy you can find it here.)
Theodore McManus
As with the Mac ad, this one had context behind it, as explained in this good post. Without Billy’s leadership, many of the GM companies stumbled. Cadillac, too. The date was January, 1915. Billy has still held at arm’s length from General Motors, but many began to hope he might find a way to break the stranglehold the Wall Street greedsters had on the company
The ad guy who wrote it had an agency in Toledo, Ohio earlier, and did some work for a few auto firms. Billy loved McManus’ work, but thought Toledo was too out of the way (even for him). So he invited McManus to move to Detroit.
McManus (politely, of course) declined the invitation. It was early: he clearly did not know Billy too well at that point. (This, of course, was before 1910 when such authority was stripped from him.)
Billy was not called the world’s best salesman for nothing. He smoothly offered to consolidate all General Motors’ advertising into one account, guaranteeing a volume of $1 million per year. In other words, Mr. McManus would have the the biggest ad account in America… if he moved.
Within a month, McManus was packing up and on his way to Detroit. Where he penned this famous ad.
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There, you learn something new every day. 🙂