4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2024
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Forty years ago, a Hollywood director, some tech revolutionaries and a group of London skinheads created a commercial that would rock the advertising world.
Based on George Orwell’s dystopic novel ‘1984’, and launched in the same year, the ad was like nothing that had been seen before.
But its road to being shown was rocky, and the beleaguered advert almost never made it air.
Mike Murray was Apple marketing manager at the time, he speaks to Molly Pipe.
(Photo: Steve Jobs in a room of computers in 1984. Credit: Michael L Abramson/Getty Images)
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0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in. |
0:04.0 | I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC. |
0:08.0 | My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career. |
0:12.0 | That's the thing I love about podcasts. |
0:14.4 | You start with just a good idea. |
0:16.2 | But then you have the space to see where it goes. |
0:18.4 | And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories |
0:21.8 | while developing the most unique audio talent. |
0:24.3 | So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC |
0:29.1 | Sounds. Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me |
0:41.1 | Molly Pipe. |
0:42.0 | We're going back 40 years when a commercial changed the course of advertising in the United States. |
0:50.0 | The 22 players were facing off for the 18th American Football Super Bowl. Fans watched excitedly as the match was |
1:06.9 | broadcast in bars and living rooms around the country. But one viewer wasn't interested in the game so much as what was aired in the |
1:15.2 | ad breaks. So I was at home with my family and the commercial came on and it was |
1:20.3 | exciting but also anxious wondering how are people responding. |
1:25.0 | Mike Murray was the marketing manager for the soon to be launched first ever Macintosh computer |
1:31.0 | and he had just taken a monumental risk. |
1:35.0 | You had no idea knowing how anybody responded in the moment. |
1:39.9 | There's this terrible quietness that exists saying, well, did anybody like it? |
1:45.0 | Did they understand it? |
1:46.5 | Am I fired? |
... |
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