Amaya Toman Recently, on the website of Jablíčkář, we were reminded of Apple's cult advertisement 1984. A year later, a similar advertisement came out, but it did not reach the fame of the famous "Orwellian" spot by any chance. What did the infamous Lemmings commercial actually look like, and what was the reason for its failure?
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On January 20, 1985, Apple tried to repeat the huge success of its commercial promoting the first Macintosh. The commercial, which was supposed to be the "spot number two of 1984", was, like its predecessor, broadcast during the Super Bowl. The video clip, simply titled Lemmings, was intended to promote the new Macintosh Office business platform. There is no doubt at all that Apple had only the best intentions with this advertisement, but they failed - the Lemmings spot was indelibly written in the history of Apple, but certainly not in a positive sense of the word.
It was quite predictable that Apple would come up with a "sequel" to the Macintosh ad, as well as trying to tune the new ad in a similar way to the Orwellian one - some even thought that this type of ad could become a tradition at Apple . In terms of reach, the Super Bowl broadcast was clearly a great idea. As in 1984, Apple wanted Ridley Scott to direct, but it was not possible to convince him to cooperate. His brother Tony Scott eventually took the director's chair. Advertising was once again taken under the wing by the agency Chiat / Day. The problem was partly already in the advertised product itself. It was clear that there would not be as much public interest in Macintosh Office as in the first Macintosh. But a much more fundamental problem was in advertising as such. A crowd of people walking like suicidal lemmings while monotonously singing the motif from Snow White to the top of a rock, from which she gradually plunges down, was certainly not something that would convince the target group to enthusiastically purchase the advertised product.
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Apple paid 900 dollars to broadcast a thirty-second commercial spot at the Super Bowl, and at first, probably everyone believed that the company would return this investment many times over. Luke Dormehl from the Cult of Mac server points out that the ad wasn't really that bad, but it lacked the dynamism of the 1984 spot. According to Dormehl, the hero of the ad who doesn't jump off a cliff simply doesn't have the energy of an athlete who bursts into a movie theater and throws a hammer at the big screen. The ad sparked outrage among many, and 1985 was the last time Apple aired its Super Bowl ad.
