2023-12-02 13:12:59
Promote yourself in the most brutal way with something unique. That was Steve Jobs’ ideal on the day of the XIX Super Bowl, held on January 20, 1985. And Apple knew it was making history. Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his second term as the San Francisco 49ers swept the Miami Dolphins 38-16. Joe Montana was named the MVP of the game. But the importance of this event transcends sports.
The day Stanford Stadium was topped with 84,000 Apple cushions
This Super Bowl has been widely parodied for very specific details. For example, the ‘Tops in Blue’, the traveling ensemble of active-duty members of the United States Air Force, presented their ‘Children’s Dream World’. Any Simpsons fan will remember that episode‘The new kids of poof!‘, where a pop band is being used to send subliminal messages such as ‘Join the Navy’ to young people who sing their songs.
You just need to take a look at this compilation video to understand how they do things the American way: a pirate ship, clowns in a three-ring circus, nods to the space program, wild pets and, to top it all, a guy in a jetpack flying over the playing field for 20 seconds. Like a ten-flavored cake, the stimuli pile up one after the other. But there, sneaking into the middle of everyone, a bold marketing move like few others: comfortable cushions with the apple logo.
Early in the morning, four assistants began to tear down the packaging plastic that protected hundreds of bags and boxes full of cushions. 84,049 people sat down that day to watch the game and 84,049 people were able to do so on an Apple cushion. A “luxury” touch on what was always a pure spectacle for the people: asses on cold cement, bases without backrest or boxes of any kind. In fact, at the time it was considered strange to hold such an important NFL event at Stanford Stadium. Either way, Apple had just subtly attracted attention.
Then it came ‘Lemmings’, the brand’s most controversial advertisement. And one of the most expensive. Let’s not forget that advertising in the Super Bowl is one of the most lucrative businesses in history: 30 seconds cost more than 5 million dollars. A true failure, in that it showed officials in suits falling off a cliff as a metaphor for the blindness and artemisation of the technology industry at that time. Except for one, who took off the blindfold and devoted himself to ‘The Macintosh Office’, Apple’s software.
Apple was not even a decade old. Founded on April 1, 1976 in Los Altos, California, Apple It was a strange and foreign thing for the regular public.. However, no one who was there could forget the moment. It was “the biggest blow in the history of Apple”, in the words of a certain Steve Jobs, who was barely 29 years old and had unlimited ambition.
Since then, filling a stadium giving away souvenirs has been a constant for some brands: t-shirts, pennants, mitts or a bag with a series of goodiesfrom a simple card and a water bottle to a case with headphones.
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