Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: SysAdmin on January 21, 2013, 05:48:01 PM
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With commericals like this in 1985 it's a wonder they sold any Amigas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZiWTdc6Dc8
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With commericals like this in 1985 it's a wonder they sold any Amigas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZiWTdc6Dc8
I don't agree - Just watched it and though it was pretty cool!
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People were just a different kind of stupid and flakey than they were today. 20 years from now (hopefully sooner) you'll realize how stupid and flakey we and our social trends and philosophies are today. And you'll think,"really, I responded to marketing adverts like that?!?!?"
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@SysAdmin
watch whatever kind of television broadcast from that time for comparison. imho (im an visual artist) this commercial is still pretty cool, nothing of usual sort.
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The same commercial redone with white, indistinct backgrounds and transparent surfaces would work today; however, you'd have a very hard time escaping a copyright infringement suit re: the similarities to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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I kinda like this one :)
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It tells you close to zero about the Amiga itself, other than it giving you a creative edge. In that sense, and in the visual style, it's not too dissimilar from Apple's 1984 Mac ad.
Bill's kinda right, though - the A1000 *didn't* sell well and it wasn't until the A500 that the Amiga really took off.
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After seeing that commercial, I'm never buying another Amiga again.
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I actually like that commercial - at least it was classy. But yes, it doesn't tell you anything about the computer itself.
However, the commercial's produced for today's Apple products are pretty much all art without telling you anything about the product - and look how that stuff sells.
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Yeah, next time you're talking to someone from 2033 mention Facebook to them and they'll breakout laughing.
People were just a different kind of stupid and flakey than they were today. 20 years from now (hopefully sooner) you'll realize how stupid and flakey we and our social trends and philosophies are today. And you'll think,"really, I responded to marketing adverts like that?!?!?"
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That baby is creepy.
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I feel like Lisa in the 'Mr. Plow' episode of The Simpsons (409).
Lisa: (dazed and bewildered) "Dad, was that your commercial?"
Homer: (confused) "I don't know."
Seriously, WTF?
I lived through the 80's and had an extreme interest in advertising (which incidentally led to me study marketing), this commercial does not represent the prototypical marketing expression of the day.
Looks like the agency's first crack at 'weird'. What's with all the walking and unrelated architecture leading up to the 5 seconds in front of the computer? I know they were trying to build up anticipation but it doesn't work when you conclude with an anti-climax. They should study this one in marketing courses as an example of 'doing it badly'.
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I actually like that commercial - at least it was classy. But yes, it doesn't tell you anything about the computer itself.
However, the commercial's produced for today's Apple products are pretty much all art without telling you anything about the product - and look how that stuff sells.
Er, I'm having a hard time seeing how you came to this conclusion.
Seems to me that today's Apple ads do *nothing but* show off the product. Granted, it's against a faux-artsy white backdrop and faux-indie music, but still...
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I thought the commercial was ok for say a Super Bowl type commercial thats designed to generate conversations but you'd want something waaaaay better as and everyday commercial to actually sell them properly*!
*which obviously never happened! :(
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LOL. That was pretty terrible. I still <3 the ones with the Goonies music in the background though, and re-post them from time to time just to annoy my Facebook friends with my nostalgia. ;-)
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I feel like Lisa in the 'Mr. Plow' episode of The Simpsons (409).
Lisa: (dazed and bewildered) "Dad, was that your commercial?"
Homer: (confused) "I don't know."
Seriously, WTF?
I lived through the 80's and had an extreme interest in advertising (which incidentally led to me study marketing), this commercial does not represent the prototypical marketing expression of the day.
Looks like the agency's first crack at 'weird'. What's with all the walking and unrelated architecture leading up to the 5 seconds in front of the computer? I know they were trying to build up anticipation but it doesn't work when you conclude with an anti-climax. They should study this one in marketing courses as an example of 'doing it badly'.
I read in an article that commodore were copying Apple's lisa advert which they showed at the superbowl. It worked for Apple because it was a new idea but that kind of advertising only works once. Apple beat Commodore to it so it didn't work.
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People were just a different kind of stupid and flakey than they were today. 20 years from now (hopefully sooner) you'll realize how stupid and flakey we and our social trends and philosophies are today. And you'll think,"really, I responded to marketing adverts like that?!?!?"
I only see TV ad's occasionally and find them, for the most part, pretentious and irritating at best.
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Er, I'm having a hard time seeing how you came to this conclusion.
Seems to me that today's Apple ads do *nothing but* show off the product. Granted, it's against a faux-artsy white backdrop and faux-indie music, but still...
Okay, maybe the current crop of commercials. I guess I was thinking of the first iMac commercials ("she's like a rainbow" ones) where all you saw were lots of jellybean coloured iMacs dancing in formation. Also the early iPod commercials where it just showed silhouettes dancing to solid background colours. Yes - a picture of the product was prominent, but there was little to no information in those to TELL you what the product did if you'd never heard of one before. Yet, those were some of the most successful commercials & products Apple ever released.
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That baby is creepy.
"MorphOS causes pregnancy."
And I thought that was just weight I'd picked up during the holidays.
And, yes, the baby is very creepy.
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Any one remember the first Mac TV commercial? aired during one of the super bowls I believe, with some nut throwing a sledge hammer at a huge screen?
About on par with this piece.
The Amiga commercial I remember most was the one where a kid launched his house into space with his Amiga.... It aired a lot around here.
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The Amiga commercial I remember most was the one where a kid launched his house into space with his Amiga.... It aired a lot around here.
OMG, link please? I don't remember this one!
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Wow first time I've seen that ad. Glad I didn't see back in the day would have freaked me out as a kid. The floating baby????
Almost enough to make me buy an Atari ST...... err... maybe not ;-)
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Okay, maybe the current crop of commercials. I guess I was thinking of the first iMac commercials ("she's like a rainbow" ones) where all you saw were lots of jellybean coloured iMacs dancing in formation. Also the early iPod commercials where it just showed silhouettes dancing to solid background colours. Yes - a picture of the product was prominent, but there was little to know information in those to TELL you what the product did if you'd never heard of one before. Yet, those were some of the most successful commercials & products Apple ever released.
They are still using the same tactic's today...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrRHPf0_B3M
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These are my fav amiga adverts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=iEFoj6sbDjU
Love the background music, wish I could place it. Reminds me of my favourite TV Series of the time Whiz Kids :-)
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And I thought that was just weight I'd picked up during the holidays.
And, yes, the baby is very creepy.
Your avatar is creepy! :-)
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These are my fav amiga adverts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=iEFoj6sbDjU
Love the background music, wish I could place it. Reminds me of my favourite TV Series of the time Whiz Kids :-)
That's the theme from the movie Goonies!
Also there's an extended (1 min.) version of that ad, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06di_a588b0
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And then there was a sequel to that ad, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCe7xl6BFT4
:)
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:-)
that one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV-X1Sz_oGk
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Terminator inspired :-)
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more features:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grEZq_AeYVY
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That's the theme from the movie Goonies!
Also there's an extended (1 min.) version of that ad, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06di_a588b0
Goonies.. ahh, will have to dig out my DVD :-) I remember the cyndi lauper song that's about the only music I remember from that movie.
But that advert is done really well.
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They are still using the same tactic's today...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrRHPf0_B3M
You cant compare an advertisement for something that's been around for over 10 years and something that is completely new. And the Amiga 1000 was extremely new.
In 2001 the iPod was marketed with the tag line: 1000 songs in your pocket. 11 years later all you need to see is a bunch of them in different SKU's dancing on screen. If in 2012 (when the linked add was first run) somebody doesn't know what an iPod is and what it does, they are well outside the target demographic.
In 1985 the Amiga 1000 was groundbreaking, it needed to identify its target demographic, and that ad did more harm than good.
That said, I love the Amiga Computer for the Creative Mind series of ads. In the 80's this is exactly how you're supposed to market a device like the Amiga 500.
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First of all this commercial is from 1985, a time when nobody actually knew the limits of the Amiga let alone guessed that without Amiga Battlestar Galactica 2004-2007 would never have happened (the CGI is all Lightwave, which exists only from the profits of Digi-view and that only exists from the leftover unused sections of the A1000 chipset which became HAM mode). This is a time when it was ludicrous to expect your computer would be simple and friendly, play any sound you could possibly digitize and display any animation or still image with an unheard of level of realism possible on any other personal desktop computer.
Secondly it is clearly going to be subject to the look and feel of the 80s, which frankly is Miami Vice or Manhunter etc etc so you can hate it as much as you like but this is what good adverts looked like in the 80s, a bit of sophistication.
But so what if it doesn't show someone using a computer, if the person didn't look like a spotty geek it wouldn't look real and such a thing on screen will not align with their target market (professionals or bored yuppies who need the best not a chumps breeze block calculator).
So in essence it is a commercial designed for well appointed successful individuals who don't want some nasty piece of tech but a beautifully elegant looking and friendly operating environment computer. The fact that it is the best creative computer ever created out of the box is nailed with a single line too, for once it is a truthful statement.
We were not the target audience beware, I bought it based on tech specs alone as did most of us coming from earlier 8 bit micros, but the kind of people who that visual style is familiar and who do actually want to do creative things on computers. And let's face it the A1000 on the pedestal looks gorgeous.
It's not as memorable as the C64 elephant adverts sure but it gets its point across perfectly in both intent (a creative machine not some piece of crap spreadsheet) and as soon as you use an A1000 and a Mac 128k/SE together only an idiot would choose that Apple monochrome P.O.S.
Commodore's problem was we didn't get classy ads like this outside the US and then we got none at all in 1986 while we were waiting for that other suicidal business plan "drop all promotion on the 1000 for a year while we wait for technically identical A500 24 months after the 1000's launch"
In essence they were going for lawyer's offices and art studios and animation groups etc and this fits in perfectly, the kind of offices they wanted it in were just as ostentatious and ludicrously expensive in decoration.
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You cant compare an advertisement for something that's been around for over 10 years and something that is completely new. And the Amiga 1000 was extremely new.
Not sure what you are on about, I was replying to ral-clan's comment (below) stating that Apple still use the same marketing.
"I guess I was thinking of the first iMac commercials ("she's like a rainbow" ones) where all you saw were lots of jellybean coloured iMacs dancing in formation"
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The 80's and classy don't go together. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjIHrb-aSI8
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The 80's and classy don't go together. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjIHrb-aSI8
I LOVE that commercial, and I've never seen it before! The giant computers are really good replicas!
I wouldn't say that commercial isn't classy - well, it's more good natured fun, but definitely not "tacky" or embarassing.
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Most adverts don't tell you very much about the products. Especially car adverts, which usually either sell them as ways for young people to be independent or confident, or for family holidays. They're selling you a lifestyle rather than a product. Even though we all know the reality is very different.
The 1984 Mac advert references George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four, so you get the idea that the Mac is a rebel against mindless conformity.
This Amiga ad references 2001: A Space Odyssey with the Amiga playing the part of the Monolith that stimulates technological advancement.
Better than the ads that I remember anyway, that seemed to market Amiga like toys.
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Most adverts don't tell you very much about the products.
+1
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What a crap ad. Were they selling stairs and floors!
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Of course this advert shows exactly why someone would need a Renault 21:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyfLbGlGr2s
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Fav ad at the moment :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZfkSAQWz9E
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Fav ad at the moment :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZfkSAQWz9E
lol, that is epic! :D