\n<\/p>\n
Four decades ago, the Super Bowl became the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t because of anything that happened in the game itself: On Jan. 22, 1984, the Los Angeles Raiders defeated Washington 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII, a contest that was mostly over before halftime. But during the broadcast on CBS, a 60-second commercial loosely inspired by a famous George Orwell novel shook up the advertising and the technology sectors without ever showing the product it promoted. Conceived by the Chiat\/Day ad agency and directed by Ridley Scott, then fresh off making the seminal science-fiction noir \u201cBlade Runner,\u201d the Apple commercial \u201c1984,\u201d<\/a> which was intended to introduce the new Macintosh computer, would become one of the most acclaimed commercials ever made. It also helped to kick off \u2014 pun partially intended \u2014 the Super Bowl tradition of the big game serving as an annual showcase for gilt-edged ads from Fortune 500 companies. It all began with the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs\u2019s desire to take the battle with the company\u2019s rivals to a splashy television broadcast he knew nothing about.<\/p>\n In recent interviews, several of the people involved in creating the \u201c1984\u201d spot \u2014 Scott; John Sculley, then chief executive of Apple; Steve Hayden, a writer of the ad for Chiat\/Day; Fred Goldberg, the Apple account manager for Chiat\/Day; and Anya Rajah, the actor who famously threw the sledgehammer \u2014 looked back on how the commercial came together, its inspiration and the internal objections that almost kept it from airing. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.<\/p>\n JOHN SCULLEY<\/strong> On Oct. 19, 1983, we\u2019re all sitting around in Steve [Jobs\u2019s] building, the Mac building, and the cover of Businessweek says, \u201cThe Winner is \u2026 IBM.\u201d We were pretty deflated because this was the introduction of the IBM PCjr, and we hadn\u2019t even introduced the Macintosh yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n STEVE HAYDEN<\/strong> Jobs said, \u201cI want something that will stop the world in its tracks.\u201d Our media director, Hank Antosz, said, \u201cWell, there\u2019s only one place that can do that \u2014 the Super Bowl.\u201d And Steve Jobs said, \u201cWhat\u2019s the Super Bowl?\u201d [Antosz] said, \u201cWell, it\u2019s a huge football game that attracts one of the largest audiences of the year.\u201d And [Jobs] said, \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a Super Bowl. I don\u2019t think I know anybody who\u2019s seen a Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n FRED GOLDBERG<\/strong> The original idea was actually done in 1982. We presented an ad [with] a headline, which was \u201cWhy 1984 Won\u2019t Be Like \u20181984,\u2019\u201d to Steve Jobs, and he didn\u2019t think the Apple III was worthy of that claim.<\/p>\n SCULLEY<\/strong> They said, \u201cA lot of people might want to do something with George Orwell\u2019s \u20181984.\u2019\u2019\u2019 If we can take advantage of the fact that we\u2019re introducing the Macintosh in January, maybe it can be so spectacular in our ads that no one else will even think about trying to copy us.<\/p>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> We started imagining, well, what did we think 1984 was going to be like, based on Orwell\u2019s writing? And we thought it would be not so dissimilar from the world we were in at the time. Russia had invaded Afghanistan. It was impossible for the Russian people to get any kind of accurate information from their own news services about what was going on.<\/p>\n GOLDBERG<\/strong> It was Lee Clow, who was the creative director of Chiat\/Day at that time, who oversaw the creation of the commercial that came out of that print concept.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> Given the sunny good nature of the average person, wouldn\u2019t this be a great tool to rebel against government overreach, especially in parts of the world where news is suppressed, manipulated or so tightly controlled it was useless to people?<\/p>\n RIDLEY SCOTT<\/strong> I said, \u201cA computer for what reason? To write the shopping list? What\u2019s the matter with a pencil and paper?\u201d They laughed. How wrong I was. I should have bought stock then.<\/p>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> At the time, Ridley was dealing with a lot of these issues about the meaning of the future, and how technologies could be twisted for good or for evil, because he was working on \u201cBlade Runner.\u201d<\/p>\n SCOTT<\/strong> I was amazed that the agency was so brave to take a highbrow piece of literature to sell a box that they never talked about, never showed a picture, never said what it was for.<\/p>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> We had originally envisioned this as a comical situation of drone-like people being hectored by a loudspeaker, told where to go, what to do, what room the meeting was in, and so forth. [Scott] pulled out a beautiful book of the movie \u201cMetropolis,\u201d so his inspiration, combined with our original storyboard of people being controlled by forces beyond their understanding, really helped us refocus the idea into technology as a tool for freedom.<\/p>\n SCOTT<\/strong> I needed a man who is an extreme right-wing dictator. I want him on the screen doing his rant as an objector makes their way along the corridors of power being chased by the police.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n ANYA RAJAH<\/strong> All we knew was that they wanted to see us throw discus. I used to be a javelin and discus thrower at school, so I went along. I was pretty good, and I obviously looked the part.<\/p>\n SCOTT<\/strong> I tend to, in my career, have very strong, powerful women. I looked for an athlete rather than a model.<\/p>\n RAJAH<\/strong> Ridley gave me an image of the hairstyle and color that he wanted on me, and sent me off to Vidal Sassoon in London to have it cut and colored. Even though I already had short blonde hair, he wanted it shorter and almost white-blonde. He was right \u2014 it was perfect for the part!<\/p>\n SCOTT<\/strong> Some people thought it was a million-dollar project. It wasn\u2019t. I was very frugal. I tend to be on budget.<\/p>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> He found a junked Vulcan bomber and had parts of that mounted on the walls and all around.<\/p>\n GOLDBERG<\/strong> [The budget] was four commercials for $650,000. I figure that commercial was $350,000, maybe $400,000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n SCOTT<\/strong> I couldn\u2019t afford the cast that I wanted, so I employed a whole bunch of National Front \u2014 extreme rightists who all had their heads shaved and tend not to have a job. I had 200 National Front in the studio. I think they were grateful for the work and had breakfast, lunch and dinner, and they got paid a bit.<\/p>\n GOLDBERG<\/strong> We paid them a total of $10,000 to sit there for three days having smoke blown in their face. They were really getting out of control at the end. The studio and the production house had security brought in. They had German shepherds to control these guys because they were throwing rocks at each other.<\/p>\n RAJAH<\/strong> I had to have a bodyguard because they were all real skinheads.<\/p>\n SCOTT<\/strong> I shot [the dictator] the day before on 16-millimeter, had it developed overnight, and then we projected it large on the screen, so it photographed badly, in a good way. I wanted it to look very deteriorated.<\/p>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> The dictator\u2019s speech didn\u2019t exist in the original script of the commercial. Ridley Scott called me and said, \u201cIt would be very useful if you could write 30 or 60 seconds\u2019 worth of copy.\u201d I went out with my brother, who was actually teaching in China as a law professor. Between the two of us, we came up with little snippets of quotes from Mussolini, from Mao, from the People\u2019s Daily, from Goebbels, and from Hitler himself.<\/p>\n SCOTT<\/strong> Trying to explain to that lot what I was doing was quite difficult, so I said, \u201cJust do as you\u2019re told. There\u2019s going to be a moment when this athlete flings a hammer at the screen. The screen will explode. I want you all to go \u2018ahhhh.\u2019\u201d And they did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n RAJAH<\/strong> Throwing a real hammer was not going to be wise, so they ended up making a papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 one, which I had to work with. It doesn\u2019t look like papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9, so it worked out OK.<\/p>\n GOLDBERG<\/strong> It was a terrific piece of film. Everybody at the agency loved it.<\/p>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> Steve Jobs was excited but frightened by it. Steve Wozniak offered to pay<\/a> to run the commercial himself.<\/p>\n SCULLEY<\/strong> Before the commercial ran, we had to take it to the board of directors. The board sees the commercial, and then there\u2019s just dead silence in the boardroom. They turn and look at me, and [a board member] says, \u201cYou\u2019re not really going to run that thing, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> As the closing credits scrolled up, the chairman, Mike Markkula, put his head in his hands and kind of folded over the conference table, and then slowly straightened up and [proposed hiring a different ad agency].<\/p>\n SCOTT<\/strong> I made it. I thought it was pretty good. But I was thinking, \u201cReally? They\u2019re going to run this on the Super Bowl? And we don\u2019t know what it\u2019s for?\u201d<\/p>\n GOLDBERG<\/strong> I had them do a theater test. We get back the results, and it\u2019s the worst business commercial that they\u2019ve ever tested, in terms of persuasiveness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n SCULLEY<\/strong> The board said, \u201cWe don\u2019t think you should run it. Try to sell the time.\u201d<\/p>\n GOLDBERG<\/strong> And it was Jay Chiat<\/a> who told us to drag our feet, basically, when we were told to sell off the time on the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> At long last, it came down that we would run the \u201c1984\u201d commercial once.<\/p>\n GOLDBERG<\/strong> Every news show had clips of it. The commercial kept running and running and running for days after that.<\/p>\n SCULLEY<\/strong> It ran for free, over and over again.<\/p>\n GOLDBERG<\/strong> The value of the offshoot publicity is what many advertisers see as the bigger benefit.<\/p>\n SCOTT<\/strong> I think the Super Bowl frenzy started there. Then, it was about $1 million a minute. Now, it\u2019s about $7 million a minute. [The average cost<\/a> for a Super Bowl ad this year is actually twice that: $7 million for a 30-second spot.]<\/p>\n SCULLEY<\/strong> When you\u2019re doing something that\u2019s never been done before, and it has a chance to change people\u2019s lives in terms of how they work and play and communicate, doing something that seems outlandish is a pretty good idea \u2014 if you do it right.<\/p>\n HAYDEN<\/strong> The tools that were originally intended to help free you now are used as a way of enslaving you with conspiracy theories and unproved stories and unsourced news that\u2019s not really news. We\u2019re realizing Goebbels\u2019s idea, getting people so confused they have no idea what to believe other than an authority figure. In that sense, we failed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n