Apple - Lemmings (1985) - 0:60 (USA)

This is one of the most hated ads of the super bowl, though I really like it.

Director Tony Scott didn't like the sky over England, so he flew to Sweden just to shoot the clouds that you see in the background. Fancy that, Swedish clouds are better.

John Sculley hated this ad, and initially told Chiat/Day not to run it ordering them to sell back the $1 million dollar airtime. But the creative team lobbied him to reverse the decision - pointing out that Apple also disliked "1984" and that turned out to be a triumph. Chiat/Day repurchased this one minute of airtime for $900,000 and the ad ran in the fourth quarter.

A full-page newspaper ad accompanied this, it simply read: "If you go to the bathroom during the fourth quarter, you'll be sorry."

Steve Jobs and John Sculley watched this ad bomb, live, at Stanford Stadium. Apple had filled the stadium with soft logo-emblazed cushions to sit on and ran the "1984" ad on the big screen to the 90,000 people strong audience who cheered when they saw it. But at halftime, when "Lemmings" came on, the response was a stunned silence. 43 million people saw it on TV, and they didn't like it either. To make matters worse, the product was bad. The Macintosh Office didn't fulfill its promise, but it did introduce AppleTalk networking.

Mike Murray wanted to run a public apology in the Wall Street Journal. Jay Chiat said that if Murray did that, Chiat/Day would buy the opposite page and apologize for the apology.

Client: Apple Computers
Ad agency: Chiat/Day
Copywriter: Steve Hayden
Marketing Manager: Mike Murray

Director: Tony Scott