1984 (advertisement)
"1984" is an American television commercial that introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer. It was conceived by Steve Hayden, Brent Thomas, and Lee Clow at Chiat/Day, produced by New York production company Fairbanks Films, and directed by Ridley Scott. The ad was an allusion to George Orwell's noted 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described a dystopian future ruled by a televised "Big Brother".[1] English athlete Anya Major performed as the unnamed heroine and David Graham as Big Brother.[2] In the US, it first aired in 10 local outlets,[3] including Twin Falls, Idaho, where Chiat/Day ran the ad on December 31, 1983, at the last possible break before midnight on KMVT, so that the advertisement qualified for the 1984 Clio Awards.[4][5][6] Its second televised airing, and only US national airing, was on January 22, 1984, during a break in the third quarter of the telecast of Super Bowl XVIII by CBS.[7]
"1984"
- Steve Hayden (copywriter)
- Lee Clow (creative director)
- Brent Thomas (art director)
- Anya Major
- David Graham
- Edward Grover (voiceover)
Pamela Power
- 31 December 1983 (local broadcast in Idaho)
- 22 January 1984 (only national broadcast)
1 minute
United States
English
In one interpretation of the commercial, "1984" used the unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by her white tank top with a stylized line drawing of Apple’s Macintosh computer on it) as a means of saving humanity from "conformity" (Big Brother).[8]
Originally a subject of contention within Apple, it has subsequently been called a watershed event[9] and a masterpiece[10] in advertising. In 1995, The Clio Awards added it to its Hall of Fame, and Advertising Age placed it on the top of its list of 50 greatest commercials.[11]
In January 1984, Apple also launched the inventé advertisement for Macintosh in France.[12]