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Vintage 80s Apple Ads Resurfacing on YouTube

DrMotownMac

DrMotownMac

Contributor
Jul 11, 2008
383
207
Michigan
My Favorite Apple Video...

In 1998, when I first started dating the woman who is now my wife, I let her talk me into buying a Dell when my 5 year old Mac needed to be replaced. Of course, this was RIGHT BEFORE the iMac came out. So, I ordered my Dell with Windows 98 installed on it, and it was a piece of crap right from the start. None of my old peripherals worked properly, even after I spent money buying Adaptec PCI cards with the appropriate connectors. When I'd call tech support, I'd get the runaround, with Dell telling me it was a Windows problem, Microsoft telling me it was an Adaptec problem, and Adaptec telling me the problem was with my old HP scanner (which worked fine with my old Mac just one week earlier). Also, the bootup time was obscene, the default organization of files and folders didn't make any sense, and it just wasn't fun to use. And I won't even start about the viruses and system crashes....

So, after only 3 months of owning it, the iMac had been announced and I saw this video while browsing the internet one night:

iMac G3 promo video - Simplicity Shootout iMac vs. PC (1998)

So, I showed this to my then girlfriend, and as we both laughed (and almost cried), we agreed that I had made a horrible mistake. This video captures, in a nutshell, exactly why the Mac is superior to the PC. Simplicity. We ended up finding someone to pay me slightly more than 50% of what I paid for the Dell, and I promptly got rid of it and bought an iMac. That Dell was the only PC I had ever owned since my parents bought our family's first computer -- an IBM PC (one of the originals...with two floppy drives and no hard drive) back in 1984...coincidentally the same year the original Macintosh was released. Every other computer I've had, from 1987 until present, has been a Mac.

And as I type this post on my 13 inch MacBook Air (Oct. 2010 release), I contemplate when I'm going to get my NEW MacBook Air! That 12 hour battery life with the faster processor and 512 GB SSD sure is tempting! Not to mention that my AppleCare Warranty will be expiring in late October, AND that my 6-year-old daughter is just learning to type and use computers at school (unfortunately, they're DELL PCs -- YUCK!). So, I need to train her properly in the ways of Apple before she gets lured to the dark side. But, if one of us is getting a "new" computer, it might as well be the one who's paying for it, right? Especially, since my 3-year-old MacBook Air is in perfect condition!
 
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SusanK

macrumors 68000
Oct 9, 2012
1,676
2,655
Our Golden helped me set up our first Mac

DrMotownMac,

Thanks for the link. I enjoyed the iMac ad. Took me back a few years. Our Golden Retriever helped me set up our first Mac. He was invaluable instructing me on it's use too. It was our first computer.

Still love my Mac!
 
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petsounds

macrumors 65816
Jun 30, 2007
1,493
519
CFreymarc said:
I mean, he sold a bunch of NeXT stations to the CIA! Where did that change come from?
Click to expand...

There was no change. Reading his biography, it's pretty clear there was always a duality of hippie and business ambition in him from his early days. Selling to the CIA, and yet also including the works of Shakespeare with every NeXT was typical of his complex worldview. iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand were created because (in his words, at least) he wanted to empower artists and non-artists to have powerful creative tools. Maybe there was a strategic business objective in there as well, but he didn't throw away his hippie sensibilities, even if sometimes they were trod upon by his cruel moments and his desire to win.
 
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CFreymarc

Suspended
Sep 4, 2009
3,969
1,149
petsounds said:
There was no change. Reading his biography, it's pretty clear there was always a duality of hippie and business ambition in him from his early days. Selling to the CIA, and yet also including the works of Shakespeare with every NeXT was typical of his complex worldview. iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand were created because (in his words, at least) he wanted to empower artists and non-artists to have powerful creative tools. Maybe there was a strategic business objective in there as well, but he didn't throw away his hippie sensibilities, even if sometimes they were trod upon by his cruel moments and his desire to win.
Click to expand...

You are entitled to your opinion. My side of the elephant is he shed a lot of his hippie roots but kept many of the anarchists ideals from his youth. Into his last decade, some close to him almost considered his actions that of a closet moderate or some even a conservative.

There were realizations that the society, system and laws which helped him build his fortune were directly opposed by the liberals / socialists that were his peers in his college and wandering years.
 
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zoetmb

macrumors regular
Oct 8, 2007
158
8
CFreymarc said:
That frog ad and a few others like it were a big double edged sword for Apple back in the day. While it showed the power of the machine, it also showed political colors to a country just starting to reject Carter and elect Reagan. This kept on going into the launch of the Macintosh where more and more right-leaning folks moved into the Apple boardroom. Many claim his left leaning ads hurt sales.
Click to expand...

Although Apple did take the Frog ad off the air in November of 1987, it was much ado about nothing. A young girl who felt squeamish about dissecting a live frog was not exactly controversial to the public at large. Remember, this was long before a station like Fox News would try to make a big deal out of it and turn it into something political.

Apple only ever had two controversial ads: "1984" and "Lemmings". While one can make the case that "Lemmings" may have turned off corporate types who felt that the ad was criticizing them, that market at that time was highly unlikely to have purchased a Mac in the first place. And even though "Lemmings" only played once officially, it got so much reaction that it was played on news reports constantly, which got Apple tons of publicity.

Carter lost the election for one reason: because Iran still held the U.S. hostages. You have your timelines completely wrong. The Carter-Reagan election was 1980. The "Frog" ad was in 1987. It had nothing to do with the nation "just starting to reject Carter and elect Reagan". In 1987, Reagan was almost at the end of his terms in office. In 1988, in spite of being a terrible candidate, Dukakis lost by 8% of the popular vote. Not exactly a national turn to conservatism, although Dukakis was completely clobbered in the electoral vote. Five years later, a Democrat would be in the White House.
 
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Rossatron

macrumors 6502a
Apr 4, 2013
663
209
in a ziplock bag inside a car's trunk
i liked the first one, the other - not as much. i get the "pun", but it's still a lame ad. the first one had everything i (as a consumer) like to see in ads: it was interesting, funny, and had an ending line (when the guy mumbles macitosh and the end you see the logo) that sticks
 
likemyorbs

likemyorbs

macrumors 68000
Jul 20, 2008
1,956
5
NJ
throttlemeister said:
Yup. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20096365,00.html
Click to expand...

Wonder where she is today, she would be around 40.

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jayducharme said:
The frog commercial seems odd to me. The girl uses the Apple computer with high-end interactive graphics to dissect a frog. I think that's pretty amazing for the 1980s. The computer is in the school lab, so it's apparently there for students to use. And then she says she got a low grade.

So what that tells me is that the teacher at the school is a traditionalist and doesn't want to allow new technology to be used. It makes it seem like Apple computers are not welcome in the classroom, the opposite of what Apple was trying to achieve back then.

I get the supposed twist at the end with the constitutional law comment, but that makes it seem like one way or another, schools will be forced to use Macs. To me, the ad has a very strange snarky confrontational tone.
Click to expand...

She said she would be happy to do it on an Apple Computer, she didn't say they let her. And since they didn't let her, she got a lower grade.
 
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DeepIn2U

DeepIn2U

macrumors G5
May 30, 2002
12,826
6,880
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
CFreymarc said:
That frog ad and a few others like it were a big double edged sword for Apple back in the day. While it showed the power of the machine, it also showed political colors to a country just starting to reject Carter and elect Reagan. This kept on going into the launch of the Macintosh where more and more right-leaning folks moved into the Apple boardroom. Many claim his left leaning ads hurt sales.

This pissed off Steve to no end. IMO, this let to a big re-evaluation of his political scene when the Berkeley "Tune in / turn on" types who embraced him at his rise at Apple kicked him to the curb when he was fired form Apple. I bet his NeXT years, like any achieved professional, had him retrospect his youth to sort out what to keep and what to throw away. I mean, he sold a bunch of NeXT stations to the CIA! Where did that change come from?

IMO, what he kept was his art and technology crossover that drove every product that he worked on. He threw away parts of the psychology / psychiatry community that took advantage of him to advance their political agenda. The Xerox PARC alumni and long term hires that started after Steve left where caught in the middle of that.

Looking forward to the movie in August.
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I don't think he got rid of any part of his goals ... just learned how to keep it under raps completely until he gained financial power and inroads.

You'll notice after pushing for that other guy who lost to the bush jr. (or was it against Clinton; sorry I'm not an "American") his views for Education had a VERY political influence that was rekindled from the early 80's interview.

PS: I don't like that first commercial too much because it depicts a brotha having bad public dining manners. But that's just me.
 
GenesisST

GenesisST

macrumors 68000
Jan 23, 2006
1,802
1,055
Where I live
cdmoore74 said:
In the second video she says that she does not want to dissect a frog because she does not want to hurt a living thing.

I miss the 80's. It was so easy back when I was young.
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Yeah, I'm caught myself about to say "back in my day" to my kids...

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Is it just me or do the computer and Fido Dido date the videos more than the hair styles and clothes... weird...
 
talmy

talmy

macrumors 601
Oct 26, 2009
4,726
332
Oregon
deannnnn said:
And I'm not a little kid, I'm 23 years old. I grew up with my parents and grandparents constantly telling me what life was like without computers and cell phones and the internet. What are we going to tell our kids we grew up without? I can't wait to find out.
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That's easy -- "When I was your age we didn't have iWatches."
 
mdelvecchio

mdelvecchio

macrumors 68040
Sep 3, 2010
3,151
1,149
Nbapapa said:
Marketing is vital for corporations.
Apple has been fortunate to have great marketing teams since the 80s, and look how far it has gotten them :)
Click to expand...

it isnt the marketing that has gotten apple to here. it's the quality of the product, which is then marketed to potential buyers.

marketing doesnt earn you consumer satisfaction awards year after year.
 
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