November 8, 1984: After preliminary Mac gross sales show disappointing, Apple CEO John Sculley goals up the “Check Drive a Macintosh” advertising and marketing marketing campaign to encourage individuals to provide the revolutionary new laptop an opportunity.
The promotional technique advises individuals to drop into their native retailer and “borrow” a Macintosh for twenty-four hours. The concept is that, by the point potential prospects must return the Mac, they may have constructed up a bond with it — and realized they will’t reside with out one among Apple’s computer systems.
Whereas 200,000 would-be prospects make the most of the provide, Apple sellers completely hate it.
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Goodbye, 1984: Apple’s ‘Check Drive a Macintosh’ promo
Sculley dreamed up the Check Drive a Macintosh marketing campaign to assist skeptical customers wrap their heads round Apple’s revolutionary new machine, which launched originally of the 12 months. Lots of them had by no means seen a graphical consumer interface, used a mouse or labored with non-IBM computer systems.
A number of memorable TV commercials accompanied the Check Drive a Macintosh marketing campaign. One confirmed what seemed to be the define of a high-end sports activities automobile obscured by a mud cowl.
“It’s highly effective,” purred the narrator with fetishistic admiration, because the digicam took in all of the curves and easy edges hidden beneath the sheet. “It’s responsive. It handles fantastically. And it’ll blow the doorways off the rest in its class.”
At that time, the quilt will get whisked away — and the large reveal is that the narrator isn’t speaking a few smooth Ferrari or Mercedes. As an alternative, we see a mouse linked to a Mac.
The marketing campaign was pure Sculley: extra optimistic and fewer bleak than Apple’s memorable “1984 dystopian future” Mac advert. As an alternative, it featured a enjoyable, high-concept hook.
Apple pitches the pc as standing image
At his earlier job as president of PepsiCo, Sculley concocted the legendary Pepsi Problem marketing campaign, which requested prospects to participate in a enjoyable experiment — a blind style check of Pepsi versus Coca-Cola. The Check Drive a Macintosh stunt provided extra of the identical, giving potential consumers an opportunity to place the pc via its paces similar to when test-driving a automobile.
“Vehicles had been purchased for emotional causes as a lot as any sensible motive,” Sculley instructed me once I was writing my guide The Apple Revolution. Apple needed to faucet into this “emotional motive.”
In spite of everything, vehicles had been Americana. They had been standing symbols. They made your life simpler and extra snug.
“The concept of test-driving a automobile itself is just not a controversial concept,” former Apple advertising and marketing supervisor Mike Murray instructed me. “It’s very acceptable conduct, whether or not you may purchase the automobile or not. An individual can go right into a dealership, whether or not it’s for a Ferrari or a Ford, and say they’d prefer to test-drive a specific automobile. The salesperson would say, ‘Positive, let’s go,’ and also you’d hop into the automobile and go for a experience.
“If we hadn’t used that phrase and as an alternative had created a marketing campaign known as ‘Take a Mac Residence for a Night time,’ nobody would have performed it,” Murray continued. “It wouldn’t have made any sense in any respect for any person to enter a pc retailer and say, ‘I need to take that laptop house for an evening.’ There can be no emotional recollections or persuasion or emotions. We had to attract on previous cognitive experiences, and the check drive of a automobile was the apparent metaphor.”
Check Drive a Macintosh marketing campaign launches with $2.5 million advert blitz
To launch the marketing campaign, Apple shelled out upward of $2.5 million for all 40 pages of promoting within the November 1984 election version of Newsweek journal. The ultimate web page was a fold-out advert asserting the provide.
“It’s unclear whether or not Apple has an promoting insert in Newsweek or whether or not Newsweek has an insert in an Apple brochure,” Sculley quipped in a November 8 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.
Combined evaluations for Sculley’s Check Drive a Macintosh stunt
In the long run, the marketing campaign met with blended evaluations. Round 200,000 prospects took benefit of the pc test-drive provide. I’ve spoken with Apple followers who obtained their first style of the Mac by plunking down a bank card and taking one house for twenty-four hours — solely to fall in love and by no means purchase a pc made by one other firm once more.
On the opposite finish of the spectrum, laptop sellers hated the marketing campaign. Macs had been already in brief provide. And loaning them out meant a lot of paperwork for no assured sale. It additionally ensured that Macs may not really be available in shops when actual prospects got here alongside to purchase one.
As well as, many testers returned the Macs in barely worse situation than when loaned. The harm, whereas usually not dangerous sufficient to cost the consumer, nonetheless might be noticeable.
Apple by no means once more ran a test-drive marketing campaign. Nonetheless, it’s exhausting to jot down off this technique as a complete failure — even when it didn’t spur a Mac gross sales bump.
Do you keep in mind the Check Drive a Macintosh marketing campaign? When did you first attempt a Mac? Depart your feedback beneath.
