Ad Analysis 1 – “1984”: Apple's Macintosh Commercial

By Nakul Patel (Roll No. 92)

1984 is an American television commercial that introduced Apple’s Macintosh computer shown first time at 1983 Apple Keynote. This ad has been many a times touted as “possibly the best ad” of all times. It was directed by Ridley Scott and went on to win many awards, including –

·         2007: Best Super Bowl Spot (in the game's 40-year history)

·         2003: WFA—Hall of Fame Award (Jubilee Golden Award)

·         1999: TV Guide—Number One Greatest Commercial of All Time

·         1995: Advertising Age—Greatest Commercial

·         1995: Clio Awards—Hall of Fame

·         1984: 31st Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival—Grand Prix

Before we go on to discuss the specific marketing elements in this analysis, let us first understand the premise and promise on which this ad was based.

The Plot

To continue with the analysis, it is important to gain an overview of the plot.

Thomas and Hayden wrote up the story of the ad: we see a world of mind-controlled, shuffling men all in gray, staring at a video screen showing the face of Big Brother droning on about “information purification directives.” A lone woman clad in vibrant red shorts and a white tank-top (bearing a Mac logo) runs from riot police, dashing up an aisle towards Big Brother.

Just before being snatched by the police, she flings a sledgehammer at Big Brother’s screen, smashing him just after he intones “We shall prevail!” Big Brother’s destruction frees the minds of the throng, who quite literally see the light, flooding their faces now that the screen is gone. A mere eight seconds before the one-minute ad concludes, a narrator briefly mentions the word “Macintosh,” in a a calm but triumphant restatement of that original tagline: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ’1984.’” An Apple logo is shown, and then we’re .

Background

The background of the whole spot is the intertextuality with George Orwell’s Novel “1984”. The images of the spot are an allusion to the novel, which describes the year 1984 as a dark future, with the dictatorship of the television screens from “Big Brother.” The idea behind the spot is to present the end of the ruler ship of “The Big Blue” (IBM) and it puts a lot of effort in creating very strong polar oppositions of good and bad.

The spot itself is a pure atmosphere-advertisement, which means, that it does not give a rational reason to legitimate a purchase. This was very unusual for the time. Advertisement spots of other computer companies, like the IBM spot from 1986, in which a Charlie Chaplin lookalike thinks about the reasons to buy an IBM-PC, where based upon the idea of delivering reasons for a purchase.

Ad Analysis

The technical codes of the spot are, for the time of the release, very modern. Fast cuts show the “hero”, the armed force and the huge screen from different camera angles. It also takes advantage of very obvious social codes: The dark troop of soldiers with their masks and scary outfits form a strong contrary and a binary opposition to the athletic woman in her bright dress and her wafting blond hair. These connotations make it very easy to differentiate between the “good” and “bad”.

The verbal codes are also clearly used as signifiers to help the audience understand the bad “Big Brother” that dominates the market, controls everything and uses its power for evil purposes. When the screen explodes a cool, charming voice introduces Macintosh. The whole spot is a connotation that anchors Orwell’s dystopian Novell in people’s minds in relation to IBM computers.

Target Audience

The spot demonstrates Apple’s position on the market, and its relationship to its customers during this time very well. Apple is a small, unknown company, especially amongst the 'non-techies'. It was not usual to have a personal computer in your household in those days. The fact that the spot was broadcast at a major sports-event shows at which target audience it was aimed.

The demographics of the audience were from a broad age range and focused on the average income range. The whole idea that personal computers were available and simple enough for non-techies, had to be brought to the average person. People were very critical with computers, they were very complicated and inaccessible.

The advertisements clearly targets a very specific field of cultural-code. The spot can only be understand by someone who has heard of Orwell's novel, ergo is a part of the western society. To someone who grew up somewhere else, without ever reading Orwell, the clip will not suggest the expected meanings.

Objective – Message

Answering “Why it won’t be like 1984?”

Before we try to understand the objective of the ad, we must first also give attention to an important aspect of the ad, i.e. timing. The ad was aired for first time during the Superbowl. It can be assumed that most people in America were tuning in to their television sets at the time this commercial was aired (a strategic marketing strategy of Apple). The intended audience is quite similar to the actual in this case, knowing that the intention of the company was to sell the advertised product and reach as many people as possible, not just to the tuned in viewers. Because the Superbowl generates such a large prospected audience in America, the kairos of Apple’s commercial were spot on.

However, we can further turn our attention to what was happening outside the United States. The timing appeals to the foreign affairs of 1984. In the advertisement, we see a powerful, totalitarian looking figure trying to persuade the masses on a giant projected screen. At the time this commercial was aired, Americans were still conflicted with the governing ways of communist nations. Further, we see a young woman running up to this figure swinging a hammer (possibly symbolic of the hammer and sickle associated with communism). She sends the hammer flying into the projection, which seems to eliminate the authority and leave the masses left with their own free thinking instead of brainwash. At the end, the Apple advertisement textually refers to George Orwell’s 1984 and culturally connects to the audience. As many are and were aware, the novel entails the use of technology to control society in a negative fashion. The connection to 1984 paired with the foreign communist movement in action at the time perfectly play on the pathos of the audience as well as their presuppositions. Americans were sensitive to the idea of being completely controlled by one ruler, and Orwell’s 1984 further added to the fear by causing everyone to think technology was evil and would destroy American society. As a result, technology formed a negative stereotype.

Thus, the main purpose of Apple’s advertisement was to banish said stereotype held by the audience and assure them that the happenings in 1984 would never actually happen. Technology was something new and scary back then, and people did not know what to expect. The commercial really took a risk in gaining the audience’s trust for their product–after all, how did viewers really know whether or not Apple’s technology would be unlike 1984? Through the use of rhetorical pisteis in a television advertisement genre, Apple went out on a limb to persuade the masses to enter the ‘tech’ era.

Execution

Message Format

While the images of the drones marching, the tyrant on-screen, and the girl with the sledgehammer are powerful and unforgettable, the coloring of the images is what makes them so powerful. When the people marching or the tyrant are shown everything has tones of blue and grey, while shots of the girl have full color. Even more so the girl’s clothing is bright, colorful, and very athletic looking while the people in the crowd are wearing thick, grey uniforms. The coloration of the shots is important because it works on multiple levels. The grey and blue tones on shots of Big Brother and his followers let the viewer instantly recognize Big Brother as the antagonist and the crowd as a brainwashed mass. It also lets the audience know that there is no individuality in this group. If the appearances of the crowd weren’t enough they are given uniforms of the same bland grey color to make sure no one sticks out, they are all the same. In contrast the bright colors on the girl let the audience know she is the protagonist, and that she is going to liberate the people from the control of the tyrant. In this way the girl is unique, and original, exactly what Apple wants to be seen as.

Apple wants to be seen as the beacon of originality, and by this they are appealing to a persons want to be unique and outside of the crowd; it is a pathos appeal, an appeal to emotion, and it works because of the powerful images present in the ad. No one wants to be just one in the crowd, and no one wants to be controlled but that is exactly what the consumer is if they don’t buy an Apple Macintosh. This ad focuses on those who want to be different, and it makes them feel like the way to be different and unique is to buy the upcoming Mackintosh. For those who don’t necessarily care about being different, the ad taunts them by calling them mindless followers of the big corporations. It doesn’t come outright and say it, but it is implied. Apple uses this kind of appeal because a lot of the appeal of Apple products themselves is that they are slicker then the competition. This appeal matches how Apple wants to present itself in everything it does, unique and different from the rest, and therefore better.

Message Source

The images in Apple’s 1984 ad are allusions to George Orwell’s famous novel 1984, in which the Dystopian nation of Oceania is governed by a suppressive totalitarian government. The tyrant in the ad is representative of the Big Brother character in the novel, the dictator of Oceania, and in the ad this character is meant to be representative of Apple’s competitors, particularly IBM. The crowds of people who have been brainwashed by Big Brother are the consumers, mindlessly being controlled by the big computer companies. They wear grey jumpsuits with shaved heads and have no distinct features to separate one from the other; even their genders are left ambiguous. The girl with the hammer is the protagonist of 1984, Winston Smith, and in the ad she is Apple, the underdog come to save the people from the oppressive tyrant that is Big Brother, or in reality IBM. She wears attire fitting that of an Olympic athlete, bright orange shorts, running shoes, and a white tank top with the Apple logo in cubist artwork. Through use of allusions to 1984 the images and the setting in the ad are given depth that is normally unobtainable in a thirty-second ad.

Message Structure

Apple’s 1984 ad takes advantage of George Orwell’s beloved novel 1984 and its setting to create one of the most successful ads of all time. Powerful images of drones, tyrants, and a lone hero captivate the audience and Brilliantly weave characters like Big Brother and Winston Smith into an ad about personal computers. The greatest aspect of the allusions being made in this ad is that the viewer doesn’t have to understand the allusions to understand the ad. There is depth in this ad that could only have been accomplished by using a novel such as 1984 as a backdrop. Everything in this ad can be attributed to 1984, from the images to the dialogue, and it is all the better for it. Take away 1984 and this ad will lose everything that has made it a cultural icon. Through the use of a brilliant pathos appeal combined with the powerful images and dialogue, Apple’s 1984 ad is one of the most effective ads in history.

Message Content

By completely ignoring any focus on "reason", the spot solely signifies that by buying the product you are escaping the world of control and unison to finally become free. This message is a myth that the images create. The advert produces connotations of freedom and passion towards independence.

Message Impact

When the ad aired, controversy erupted — viewers either loved or hated the ad, and it spurred a wave of media coverage that involved news shows replaying the ad as part of covering it, leading to estimates of an additional $5 million in “free” airtime for the ad. Fortunately for Apple, all three national networks and nearly 50 local stations ran news stories about the ad, some showing the entire spot, barely a few hours later. This gained Apple publicity worth many million Dollars. Apple’s announcement that they would never broadcast the spot again fed the following media frenzy even more. “1984″ become a cultural event, and served as a blueprint for future Apple product launches. The marketing logic was brilliantly simple: create an ad campaign that sparked controversy (for example, by insinuating that IBM was like Big Brother), and the media will cover your launch for free, amplifying the message.

Social Impact

Ted Friedman, in his 2005 text, Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture, notes the impact of the commercial:

Super Bowl viewers were overwhelmed by the startling ad. The ad garnered millions of dollars worth of free publicity, as news programs rebroadcast it that night. It was quickly hailed by many in the advertising industry as a masterwork. Advertising Age named it the 1980s Commercial of the Decade, and it continues to rank high on lists of the most influential commercials of all time [...] '1984' was never broadcast again, adding to its mystique.

"1984" became a signature representation of Apple computers. It was scripted as a thematic element in the 1999 docudrama, Pirates of Silicon Valley, which explores the rise of Apple and Microsoft (the film opens and closes with references to the commercial including a re-enactment of the heroine running towards the screen of Big Brother and clips of the original commercial). The "1984" ad was also prominent in the 20th anniversary celebration of the Macintosh in 2004, as Apple reposted a new version of the ad on its website. In this updated version, an iPod, complete with signature white earbuds, was digitally added to the heroine. Attendees were given a poster showing the heroine with iPod as a commemorative gift.