Early this year, Apple was poised for a powerful comeback after years of bleeding red ink and market share. Steve Jobs had retaken the helm "indefinitely" and made several bold moves to steer Apple away from an iceberg primarily of its own making. Many of those choices were, uh, "unpopular--" killing the clone market springs to mind-- but few can dispute that, overall, things were looking up; the G3's were selling well, Mac OS 8 was a success, Apple's build-to-order online store was popular both with customers and industry analysts, the "Think Different" ad campaign had people talking, and Jobs revealed that Apple would be posting its first real profit in a good long time. Good news all around (as long as you ignored the bad news, of course). While it was still too early to say for sure, it really looked like Apple had turned the corner, and that's why a lot of us were hoping that Apple would take a page from its own history and let the world know by advertising during the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl has long been known as the event during which to air groundbreaking new commercials (as well as dreck like the Intel Bunnymen-- yecch), and Apple had one of the best ever: the 1984 ad which ushered in the age of Macintosh. Since last January it looked like the Mac was back, several of us were somewhat disappointed that Apple didn't air a special "Think Different" ad during the event. Evidently Apple felt it had better things to buy with the $1.3 million than a thirty-second Super Bowl ad. In retrospect, we at AtAT have to agree with Apple's decision; there were still too many questions left unanswered, and the public at large certainly had no particular reason to believe that Apple was still a factor in the computer industry. Remember, this was before the iMac turned the world upside down, and a thirty-second ad-- even a Super Bowl one-- touting Apple's greatness would likely have been a premature gesture.

Not anymore, however. After four consecutive profitable quarters, the unveiling of the PowerBook G3's to rave reviews, and the iMac's big Bondi blue footprint on the minds of the public, Apple has decided it's time to announce its resurgence. According to an Ad Week article, Apple's already committed the $1.6 million or so for a slot, and we can hardly wait to see what they and ad agency TBWA Chiat/Day have up their sleeves. Considering that they haven't advertised during the Super Bowl since 1985, we'll take anything we can get, but only an ad that rivals the 1984 commercial will really feel right. And we should mention that our irrational fear that the ad will simply be thirty seconds of Steve sitting quietly and smiling is completely unfounded. (Wouldn't it be creepy, though?)