Apple broadcast Steve Jobs’s famous 1984 Macintosh advertisement during Super Bowl XVIII.
The commercial aired on January 22, 1984, during the National Football League championship game between the Los Angeles Raiders and Washington Redskins. Ridley Scott directed the advertisement, while advertising agency Chiat/Day created it for Apple.
The dystopian commercial showed a woman running into a theater and throwing a hammer at a giant screen displaying a conformity-themed speech. Its imagery drew on George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and presented the Macintosh as a tool for individual creativity.
The advertisement is often remembered as one of television’s most influential commercials. A common mix-up is the broadcast date: it aired before the Macintosh launch event on January 24, 1984, rather than during the product’s unveiling itself.