Sep. 16th, 2009

Think Different. Please Hurry.

1977apple2

"Looks like we're on pace for a twenty percent uptick in squiggly lines, hon."

Check out this gallery of Apple ads from 1977 to the present. At first, it's good, campy fun. Then, it turns into a house of horrors. You can actually tell from the ads precisely when Steve Jobs was run off the reservation, and when he returned. (That co-op ad with Quark? Eeesh.)
Taken together, the collection echoes a theme we always hammer on here – your audience controls the conversation, not you. The lecture-y, long-copy* ads make you want to claw your own eyes out. The ads that hint at what you could do if you had a Mac do not. In fact, they're still insanely great.

There's a cool exhibit of the technology itself as well.

*Long-copy ads are not automatically bad. But when they are…/shudder.

Post a Comment

* REQUIRED