Jobs' Super Bowl ad changed the game

[KamaAina]

Yup, a Jobs thread in the Sports Forum. Man up and deal with it.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/sports-general/20111007/Couch-Jobs-Ad-Changed-The-Game/

Steve Jobs changed the Super Bowl, too. He changed everything, didn’t he? He changed the way we look at sports and continues to do it now, even after he died Wednesday.

It started with the Super Bowl in 1984, when Jobs went against the advice of Apple’s board and ran a 60-second movie-quality commercial, playing off George Orwell’s novel, "1984," to help introduce his new Macintosh home computer. They didn’t have commercials like that before....

A computer commercial was a sports moment? That’s right. The Super Bowl is our most important sporting event, and TV is the way we watch it. Jobs changed the way we take it in, made it more of an event by introducing an era of big Super Bowl commercials.

It helped to fully complete the moment. And when you watch now, with the National Anthem, the over-the-top halftime shows, the big-production commercials that everyone watches and, oh yes, the game too, it all adds up to a great celebration of Americana. Or at least American capitalism.

[Auggie]

1. I worked in the creative department of a San Francisco ad agency at the time...

and it blew us away. It blew away the entire ad world -- suddenly we all wanted to create commercials like that. The suits, of course, hadn't a clue what all the fuss was about.

Contrary to popular belief, the spot did air more than once. It was "tested" the week before the SuperBowl on a local S.F. station I was just happening to watch. So I saw it air twice.

Few have come close since then, IMO, to matching the spectacle and surprise created by Chiat/Day L.A. Concept in advertising is a dieing art, I'm afraid. And thanks to ubiquitous CGI, audiences are a lot harder to awe these days. In fact, I think the most recent the SuperBowl advertising is trite and boring. Go figure.

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. Commercial time is potty break time in this house.

Sorry Mr. Jobs, I'm sure it was nice.

[Auggie]

3. Party pooper

:P

[taterguy]

4. Did you read the fucking New York Times that day?

Apple took out a full-page ad.

It said: "YOU'LL BE SORRY IF YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM DURING THE FOURTH QUARTER"

I'm not kidding.

[Awsi Dooger]

5. I remember it well, trying to watch while getting hit in the head by Peanut M&Ms

Off campus Super Bowl party at USC turned into a food fight. I think 3 of us among about 25 realized something very special had just aired.

[rocktivity]

6. It was the agency that made the commercial, and I read that Jobs almost chickened out

he called the agency the night before to call it off because it was so "different," but was talked out of it.

Then of course, there's the Hillary Clinton parody of it, brilliantly showcasing her shortcomings in the nicest possible way.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[Auggie]

7. I didn't know that...

Chiat/Day usually got their way in everything. It was a remarkable agency.