January 20, 1985. Super Bowl XIX. San Francisco and Miami.

Forget about past Super Bowls that had turned out to be one-sided flops; not only were the two best teams in the National Football League in 1984 matched, but so were the two best quarterbacks—Montana against Marino. Surefire box office material, this one.

And it was. Oh, not for the game. The 49er’s harpooned the Dolphins 38-16 in about as dull a game as the NFL has ever produced.

But at the same time, it was truly magical.

Apple decided the third quarter of this game was the right time to "1984" introduce the Macintosh personal computer for the first time. Macs, right? You’ve heard of them.

Created by Lee Clow and Steve Hayden of Chiat/Day and directed by Ridley Scott, the commercial opens with an industrial setting, showing a line of ambiguously-gendered people marching in unison. They are moving through a long tunnel monitored by a string of giant screens.

Suddenly, a young woman appears running down the center aisle. She’s carrying a large brass-headed hammer, and is wearing bright orange athletic shorts, running shoes, and white tank top, and we see the Thought Police in close pursuit.

She lets throw an Olympic hammer into a screen with the giant visage of Big Brother, saying in monotone, “We shall prevail!” And the screen explodes in a flurry of light and smoke.

And then: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984."

Oh man. They’ll never be able to do that again.

Ted Friedman, in Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture, notes the impact of the commercial:

Super Bowl viewers were overwhelmed by the startling ad. The ad garnered millions of dollars worth of free publicity, as news programs rebroadcast it that night. It was quickly hailed by many in the advertising industry as a masterwork. Advertising Age named it the 1980s Commercial of the Decade, and it continues to rank high on lists of the most influential commercials of all time.

It never ran again. But it has definitely played on forever.

Apple’s “1984” came at a time when television commercials were still very focused on “whiter whites and bluer blues.” Forget that the sheer power of audacity on such a grand stage hadn’t been mined. It hadn’t even broken ground.

It ushered in a new era of showmanship, ingenuity, creativity and, yes, even avarice. Marketers began lining up and paying obscene amounts for Super Bowl spots.

The commercials became as much a part of the show as the game itself. The game might be a yawner, but the commercials, now there was something people looked forward to.

Ad industry professionals and clients loved to drop the Super Bowl name, saying, “Well we had a Super Bowl spot this year,” with the implication being “like those Apple guys.” And to be sure, there were some great ones over the years.

But, nothing ever quite lived up to “1984.” Possibly in part because once you’ve landed on the moon for the first time, it’s not as big a deal when you do it again.

And “1984” was man on the moon big.

(I worked with Steve Hayden early in my career. Of “1984” he said simply, “The right place at the right time.” Oh.)

We live in a different world now. With a different dominant medium. And as pervasive as the digital world is, has there been a “1984” for this era yet?

Certainly there have been some wonderfully inventive moments: Burger King’s quirky Subservient Chicken website experience and Mark Ecko’s social media trickery tagging what seemed to be Air Force One often talked about as groundbreaking.

Groundbreaking, yes.

But do they inspire for digital what “1984” did for the traditional realm? Beyond what the Internet has created by medium, have they actually changed the expectations of society itself?

Modern tools allow us to spend our clients’ money in a smarter, more measurable, more targeted way than ever before. Certainly much smarter, as a rule, than in 1984. We are literally at the point where we can target an audience by the number of hairs on his head.

And there are those who say that media is the new creative. With all due respect to many very creative media professionals, I don’t believe that. But I do believe media planning, buying and measurement is far ahead of the creative product it supports.

Great work is done in the digital space every day. T3 employs many who not only see the space of the future, but how to tie technology and creativity together.

And that’s what gets me excited about the next “1984.” I can’t wait until we find a way to connect such specific laser-focused targeting with creative that changes the very society we live in.

I can’t wait to see the documentaries that delve into the stories behind that work, the books that will be written, or to see who will be the next Lee Clow or Steve Hayden.

I can’t wait to witness it for the first time, for nothing else but my own sense of awe.

And once again say: “Damn, they’ll never be able to do that again.”

And I know that day is coming. But I hope it’s in the third quarter of a better Super Bowl.

Article by, T3 Consumer Insight Group