January 20, 1985: Trying to construct on the triumph of the earlier yr’s “1984” Macintosh industrial, Apple deploys one other dystopian Tremendous Bowl industrial. The brand new Apple advert, titled “Lemmings,” promotes the corporate’s upcoming enterprise platform, known as The Macintosh Workplace.
The darkish, 30-second spot depicts blindfolded executives marching to their doom. The broadly reviled advert will go down in historical past as considered one of Apple’s largest stinkers.
Apple’s ‘Lemmings’ advert dashes excessive expectations for Tremendous Bowl repeat
As I famous in a current “At the moment in Apple historical past,” the “1984” Macintosh industrial directed by Ridley Scott proved an enormous boon for Apple. It garnered tons of publicity and represented a brand new creative excessive for tech promoting. It additionally successfully established a picture of Apple as an underdog combating Huge Brother, which the corporate maintained for many years.
A sequel appeared inevitable. Apple selected the next yr’s Tremendous Bowl because the venue, suggesting that this might turn into a convention for Cupertino.
Tremendous Bowl XIX was a good selection, too. It was an enormous occasion in and of itself. It was the primary Tremendous Bowl aired on ABC, and the primary with a sitting U.S. president participating within the coin toss. The large sport even came about in Stanford, California, making it a Silicon Valley-centric version of the soccer championship.
Apple’s advert company, Chiat/Day, tried to get Scott again to direct the second industrial, however failed. As an alternative, the company landed his brother, Tony Scott (who went on to direct films together with Prime Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II and True Romance).
Apple hypes The Macintosh Workplace with ‘Lemmings’ advert
The “Lemmings” advert was alleged to promote a brand new product known as The Macintosh Workplace, which was designed to attach a bunch of Macs to a LaserWriter printer and permit them to share data utilizing a file server.
The product wasn’t wherever close to as thrilling because the Macintosh’s launch from the earlier yr. Nonetheless, the advert wanted to promote skeptical prospects on Apple’s new product line. At that time, Mac gross sales remained a fraction of what they need to have been.
Sadly, the idea for the industrial was horrible. Singing a grim model of the tune “Heigh-Ho” from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (“Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go”), the advert’s unseeing workplace drones trudged up a hill, solely to comply with one another off a cliff. Finally, one businessman removes his blindfold and appears round, discovering himself alone with Macintosh Workplace.
See Apple’s disastrous “Lemmings” advert right here:
‘Lemmings’ is a vital and industrial failure
Apple paid $900,000 for its 30-second promoting slot through the Tremendous Bowl broadcast. On condition that the earlier yr’s advert reportedly earned round $5 million in publicity, Apple thought of this a value price paying.
Trying again, the “Lemmings” advert makes me sympathize a bit with the Apple executives who vehemently opposed working the unique “1984” advert resulting from its bleak tone. Sure, they had been clearly flawed of their judgment in 1984. However the distinction between the 2 adverts — one a watershed second for Apple promoting, the opposite a dank pool of failure and remorse — is just not as nice as you would possibly assume.
Each had been directed by an acclaimed industrial mastermind. Each used a colorless shade palette to depict a world with out Apple. And each depicted zombie-like people, awoken to the potential of the Mac.
What Apple’s “Lemmings” advert lacked was the urgency of the earlier yr’s industrial — and its sense of joyous insurrection. A person not leaping off a cliff doesn’t play the identical as a sledgehammer-tossing girl smashing the enemy, irrespective of how a lot you attempt to consider it is going to.
“That was clearly a mistake, exhibiting your entire potential prospects leaping off a cliff,” Alan Oppenheimer, who labored for Apple on the time, advised me for my ebook The Apple Revolution.
Dangerous advert causes turmoil for Apple
The advert reportedly offended Debi Coleman, one of many key individuals within the Macintosh division, so badly that she stop the corporate on the spot. She typed up her resignation on her Mac and printed it out on a LaserWriter.
“The day after the Tremendous Bowl, our phone traces had been overloaded with calls from irate individuals claiming they’d by no means purchase an Apple product once more,” former Apple CEO John Sculley recalled years later. “They believed the industrial insulted the very individuals we had been making an attempt to court docket as prospects in company America.”
At one level, an Auschwitz survivor phoned Apple to accuse the corporate of utilizing the Holocaust to promote private computer systems. It was a foul search for all concerned.
Finish of an period
1985 marked the final time Apple ran a Tremendous Bowl industrial till 1999. It additionally signaled the start of the tip for the connection between Chiat/Day and Apple. It fizzled not lengthy after. The advert company didn’t work with Apple once more till the late Nineteen Nineties, when it produced the iconic “Suppose Completely different” marketing campaign after Steve Jobs returned to Cupertino.
Historical past hasn’t been type to the “Lemmings” advert, both. Macintosh Workplace didn’t grow to be wherever close to as important because the Mac (not that it realistically ever might have been). Apple was courting a enterprise viewers, whose gamers weren’t smitten by ditching IBM. Extra considerably, the Apple file server promised by the advert didn’t ship till 1987.
Worst Apple advert of all time?
Do you keep in mind the “Lemmings” advert? What’s your choose for Apple’s worst commercial of all time? Depart your feedback beneath.
