A Brief History of Computers, As Seen in Old TV Ads
It's been said that the average American will see two million TV commercials by the time he or she turns 65. Doing some quick math in my head, I believe that means that I've seen...well, a terrifyingly large number of commercials for PCs and related products over the past 26 years or so. You too, maybe.
One of the many perversely fascinating things about YouTube is that its users have uploaded a remarkable percentage of those ads to the site, including both famous and obscure examples. Watch enough of them, in the right order, and what you have is a history of the PC in American life.
I've been doing that watching this weekend--and thanks to the magic of embedded YouTube, you can join me if you so choose.
First, a short but informative FAQ:
Q. Where's my favorite computer commercial?
A. It's from Apple, right? The marketing minds in Cupertino have so utterly dominated TV advertising for PC products, for almost as long as there have been PC products, that I didn't try to include every significant Apple spot here...and I still ended up with far more of 'em than for any other manufacturer. Which is why this little walk down memory lane is bereft of stuff like the "What's on Your Powerbook?" ads and dancing iPod silhouettes. Also, there were a few ads I wanted to include but couldn't track down, such as one for the IBM PC Jr.
Q: Where's "Dude, you're getting a Dell?"
A: Please tell me that's not your favorite computer commercial! Tragically, I couldn't find the works of Ben Curtis in embeddable form on either YouTube or Google Video. Perhaps Michael Dell would rather forget the whole thing and has asked for them to be removed. I wouldn't blame him.
Q. Why are so many of the commercials from way back?
A. Hey, they're old! The computers are laughably clunky! The people are wearing hairstyles, clothes, and eyeglasses that are no longer fashionable! One of the ads features William Shatner! You don't find that entertaining? Seriously, though, the last decade or so of computer advertising has been seriously dull. If Steve Jobs hadn't returned to Apple, I'm not sure if we'd have seen a single good ad. (No, "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" doesn't count.)
Q: Where are these commercials from?
A: The U.S., as far as I know. Rule one of European computer commercials: They're too dirty for American TV.
With that out of the way, let's watch some TV commercials. Twenty-seven of them, actually, and two Windows-related videos that aren't really TV ads, in roughly chronological order...
Atari 400 (1980 or thereabouts): In the beginning, computer companies couldn't assume that consumers knew why they might want a PC. Early commercials, either through heartwarming vignettes or cautionary tales, tended to focus on the idea that computers made children smarter. Here's one for the famously flat-keyboarded Atari 400, the first PC I ever bought with my own money.
Commodore VIC-20 (circa 1981): This ad for Commodore's super-cheap computer was one of several from the era which attempted to both disparage computer games and tout the product in question as a swell way to play them.
More VIC-20 (same timeframe): The same theme as the above ad! Except with Shatner! During the fallow years when he was neither a TV star nor an ambulatory ironic reference! With a reference to GORF as "the wonder arcade game!"
Commodore 64 (roughly 1982): I include this ad mostly because of the cameos by the other major computers of the day--the Apple II, the IBM PC, and the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III. Note how the commercial implies that the Apple II is a crude text-only monochrome PC, while the Commodore 64 has impressive color graphics. (Yes, in 1982 those graphics were good enough to at least pass for being sort of impressive.)
Commodore 64 (also roughly 1982): If you're sick of Commodore ads by this point, I don't blame you--and I apologize profusely. But I remember my university-employed father commenting negatively on this one when it first appeared. 25 years later, I can't quite tell whether the suggestion that your kid will flunk out of college if he doesn't have a Commodore 64 is meant as a scary warning or as some sort of weird deadpan joke.
Coleco ADAM (1983 or so): Another ad involving the potent educational power of home computers, for the computer which proved it was easier to manufacture Cabbage Patch Kids than PCs.
Texas Instruments 99/4A (1983): TI is a laudable company that lost a lot of money making really mediocre home computers. So it's perhaps appropriate that this ad--featuring omnipresent 1980s pitchman Bill Cosby doing a variant of Joe Garagiola's "Buy a car, get a check" schtick--has little to say about the 99/44A other than that you could get a $100 rebate on it.
Kaypro II (1984, I think): Other than the fact that it's for a computer that I might have guessed was never advertised on TV, the most interesting thing about this ad is the fact that it was produced by Joe Sedelmaier, who ruled 1980s TV ads with campaigns like Wendy's "Where the Beef?" spots. This one doesn't star Clara Peller, but stylewise, it might as well have.
Apple Macintosh "1984" (1984, obviously): Unquestionably the most famous computer commercial of all time, this one--hated by the Apple board, directed by Ridley Scott, and aired only once nationally, during the Super Bowl--was declared the best TV commercial of all time in 1999 by TV Guide. I'm not sure if I agree. Actually, I'm positive I don't. But it remains kind of spellbinding. And no lengthy blog item with embedded YouTube versions of computer commercials would be complete without it...
IBM Personal Computer (1985): At the same time that Apple's ads said that the IBM PC was Orwellian, Big Blue's own spots said it was adorably Chaplinesque. Ladies and gentlemen, silent comedy's greatest star--or a fairly reasonable facsimile thereof--in one of the commercials that helped make IBM's computer a history-making hit.
Windows 1.0 (?) (mid-1980s): This is a cheat, since it seems not to be a commercial, but rather a parody of one for internal use at Microsoft, starring a youthful Steve Ballmer pitching a prehistoric edition of Windows in full infomercial mode, and apparently warming up for his later appearance in the uberhyper Monkey Boy video. It's too risible not to include, though.
Amiga 1000 (1985, 1986, maybe 1987?): Sadly this commercial doesn't do a particularly good job of showing off the multimedia capabilities of what was unquestionably the most multimedia-savvy PC of its era.
Tandy 1000 (approximately 1987): I was a Radio Shack TRS-80 fiend in high school, but I don't remember if the early Tandy machines were every advertised on TV. So here's a nondescript later ad for a nondescript later Tandy computer.
IBM PS/2 (1988): By this time, IBM had dumped Chaplin (which probably didn't offend him, since he was dead before the campaign started). This spot for Big Blue's ill-fated PS/2 stars a random assortment of former M*A*S*H stars--Wayne Rogers, William Christopher, Loretta Swit, and Harry Morgan. Wikipedia says that this campaign was so unsuccessful that it was a factor in IBM's decision to fire its global ad agences.
Apple II (um, 1990?): This very late Apple II commercial--for the IIC Plus, I believe--is everything most Apple ads aren't: goofy, derivative (it's a "home computers make your kids smarter" one), and dated. But it's the only embeddable Apple II ad I could lay my hands on. (Here are some earlier ones, including one with Dick Cavett, who was born to do 1980s computer commercials.)
Apple PowerBook (1991): This one's about as mundane as Apple ads have ever been. I include it here because I find it fascinating that Apple chose to launch its innovative and influential notebook line with an ad that seems to say that the system is a great DOS machine first and a Mac second.
Apple Newton (geez, 1993?): Some of the Apple ads made during Steve Jobs' exile felt like bad, tone-deaf imitations of Apple ads made when he was there. Such as this one--if Jobs had been at the company when the Newton PDA was launched, I just can't see him having used an actor dressed as Sir Isaac Newton to promote it.
IBM ThinkPad 701C (this would be 1995, I suspect): Big Blue's oddly inventive ThinkPad with "butterfly" fold-out keyboard gets a just plain odd commercial with Paul Reiser.
Windows 95 (let me think--1995): This is, I believe, not a commercial but rather a short video that was included on the Windows 95 CD-ROM. I include it here because A) it's a nifty piece by master animator Bill Plympton; and B) I couldn't find the famous ad with the Stones' "Start Me Up."
Packard Bell (allegedly 1996): It seems like a safe bet that the people who made this commercial were admirers of Apple's "1984" Mac spot. In this one, which looks like it cost a fortune to produce, the evil overloads are...librarians, and the computer in question is not the groundbreaking original Mac, but rather a legendarily unreliable PC clone.
IBM (1996): I find this commercial, which seems to be for IBM's services rather than its PCs, kind of sad. Who knew you could make Spinal Tap utterly unfunny?
Gateway 2000 (1997, I'm told): I asked a friend to mention famous TV commercials for computers, and he said, "the cow spots one." Gateway's cattle theme is indelibly associated with the brand, but I'm not sure if it was ever the focus of a TV ad. The spots do appear at the end of this one, whose pitchman leaves me wondering if Gateway wanted Steve Allen but couldn't get him.
Apple "Think Different" (1998): You could argue that it's pretentious. (It is.) You might make the point that Picasso, Maria Callas, and Amelia Earhart never touched any computer from any manufacturer. (They didn't.) You may wonder whether Jim Henson was a Mac or PC man himself, assuming he was into computing. (I did.) And you may need to do a Google search to identify the voiceover. (It's Richard Dreyfuss.) But for my money, this is the best single computer ad ever--despite the fact that it never mentions computers.
iMac (1998): Even when Apple's computers aren't all that teriffic--and the bulbous original iMac failed to make our list of the greatest PCs ever--the ads are pretty good. And this one, for the multi-colored iMacs that kicked off the whole idea of computer products being available in more than one color, also made better use of a Rolling Stones song than the Windows 95 "Start Me Up" campaign. At least if you ask me.
Pets.com (2000): You could probably do an entire retrospective of Super Bowl commercials bought by dot-coms who had no business spending massive amounts of money on the single most expensive form of national TV advertising. Maybe I will eventually. For now, here's Pets.com's sock puppet (still workin' in 2006 as spokespooch for a car loan company) and his cover of Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now." Pets.com sunk $1.2 million into this commercial's Super Bowl airing in January; in November, the company collapsed.
Windows XP (2001): People flying around. A Madonna song. The strong suggestion that Windows Movie Maker is one of the major features of the new operating system. (Trivia: I'm so out of it that I had to be informed by a co-worker that that's Madonna singing.)
Apple "Switch" (2002): Many computer commercials have used celebrities. (Usually, it seems, celebrities who were hard up for cash.) But is Ellen Feiss the only computer spokesperson who became a celebrity? Her ad in Apple's famous "Switch" campaign inspired a Lonelygirl15-like avalanche of Internet attention, except that Ellen was real. Most of the, er, buzz involved speculation over whether she was under the influence of anything when she made her commercial. (She said she took nothing stronger than Benadryl.) The commercial I present here is the lesser-known second Feiss "Switch" one, which some sources say was never aired on TV. (Here are a bunch more "Switch" ads.)
IBM Linux (2004): If this commercial, which aired during the Super Bowl, had had an Apple logo at end, it could have easily passed for a Mac spot. (Hey, the "Think Different" campaign also used old Ali footage.) But it's for IBM, and it touts the company's Linux software and services, apparently. Here's a deeper analysis.
Apple "Get a Mac" (2006): I'm not sure whether it's worth embedding one of these, since they're kind of unavoidable anyhow, but here goes. This is one from the most recent series, and while computer advertising has come a long way, the slickly-packaged gist of this campaign--that PCs are boring and unpleasant and Macs are fun--ain't so different from messages in ads from twenty years ago.
And that brings us up to the present. Got any thoughts, nostalgic or otherwise, about any of these ads--or about ones I didn't include?
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Three thoughts:
1) Windows for $99? If only that were still true.
2) Since when did Commodore ever do a good job of showing off the Amiga's capabilities?
3) If we had more dirty European ads, more people would buy computers. Or at least not skip past the ads on their TiVos.
Three thoughts:
1) The 1984 ad was aired far, far more than just once - one estimated said it was aired over 100 times during 1984. It's just that Apple only *paid* once to air it.
2) Despite the incredible success of the Apple ][, did you know that Apple stopped airing any ads for it for about 3 years, while they were unsuccessfully trying to pitch the Apple III ? During those 3 years, they lost their #1 sales position to IBM.
3) The original voice-over of the Apple Think Different ad was Steve Jobs himself, who wrote the ad and picked the people. Technically speaking, this is "brand advertising", not "computer advertising", and was a hint that Apple had more than computers to offer in the future...
PC Jr commercial:available from Vanderbuilt University video archive.
http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1984-2/1984-02-18-CBS-8.html
4 words: Where's my flying car?
Best IBM commercial ever.
Am I the only person who thinks the 1984 apple commercial’s current status in history is nothing but revisionist bs? It wasn’t talked about and was completely forgotten until the mid 90s. I don’t find it artistic enough to merit the reverence that seems to surround it. It’s like one guy wrote an article about it in the 90s and everyone bought into it like all the great things people had to say about Ronald Regan.
Somehow, I think a Commodore commercial would be everyone’s honest favorite, after all, it is the best selling personal computer of all time with an massive active scene even today. The guy clearly hasn’t a clue.
You obviously don't know anything about Ronald Reagan.
Nice attempt at sounding analytical though - you're only going to fool your pseudointellectual art buddies.
I hate people who do this but...
You should check out this awesome(ly bad) Apple networking training video that I have on my website: http://web.mac.com/danuproductions/iWeb/Personal/Apple%20seminar.html
Yes I know that the audio goes out of sync. I have to re-encode the darn thing but it is still funny.
They left out the Jeff Goldblum ads pitching iMacs.
The greatest thing was that Apple ran the exact same ads in Japan, with someone dubbed over Jeff Goldblum. Kind of lazy, in my opinion, to just run the ad without even hiring a Japanese actor to sell the PC.
You should have seen some of their ads in the 80s for PCs.
I was involved in the Kaypro ad. It ran in 1983.
At the time, my friends at Chiat/Day invited me over to see this "1984" commercial. They couldn't figure out whether to air it or not. I watched it and had no strong opinion either way. I wish I'd been prescient enough to tell them what a winner they had.
The Kaypro ad won a Clio -- back when that meant something.
I had a tape of the Win 95, "Start Me Up" commerical. As from Wikipedia.org, "Microsoft's $300 million advertising campaign featured stories of people waiting in line outside stores to get a copy, and there were tales of people without computers buying the software on hype alone, not even knowing what Windows was." I remember playing Hover!, a game included with 95.