01
Mar 12

Santorum copies Apple’s ad success — and failure

Wow — an opportunity to bring politics into a technology-oriented blog. How does one resist?

Rick Santorum has released a new video that is an obvious homage to Apple’s 1984 commercial.

Problem #1: At this point in time, only a tiny percentage of the voters have any knowledge of 1984. So in effect, it’s less of an homage and more of a rip-off.

Problem #2: It’s actually a cross between Apple’s famous 1984 commercial and its infamous clunker, Lemmings.

As most know, Lemmings bombed because it insulted the very audience it was trying to win. It portrayed them as pitiful souls blindly following the crowd, walking off a cliff to their doom.

Santorum’s video portrays the voting public as bland automatons who follow Romney without questioning. Then, for good measure, it has them walking off a cliff to their doom.

The happy ending closely follows the 1984 script, with a brightly dressed woman running into the scene to save the day. No sledgehammer this time, just a “Santorum for president” poster. The crowd seems rather dumbstruck, not much livelier than the drones in 1984. Except for the one guy in front who is so moved, he actually takes off his sweater. (Uh … right. I didn’t get that either.)

Note to Rick: if you’re going to copy Apple’s marketing success, try not to copy its failure as well.

Follow me on Twitter @ksegall.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2012 at 10:04 am and is filed under advertising, apple, creative. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

  • Sam

    Just Google Santorum. It explains everything…

  • bmcfadden

    ken — please, no more Santorum on your website! Despite the rather vile implication of spreading santorum around your site, I just hold your site with such regard and Mr. Santorum with such contempt; comparing anything little Ricky does with Apple isn’t even worth dignifying with comment.

  • qka

    There are those who consider Santorum, in his social policies, to be Big Brother himself.

    BTW, your Captcha box needs to be made visible, rather than whack-a-mole.

  • ken segall

    @bmcfadden:
    I present Santorum as an amusement, certainly not as a serious topic.

    @qka: Can you explain the problem with my Captcha better? It’s been mentioned before, but every time I check it seems pretty normal. I suppose I could find another plug-in if necessary…

  • Tobias

    I think the man’s taking off his sweater to indicate that he’s ready to get down to work, hammering railroad tracks or whatever it is that working class people do.

    I’m somewhat awestruck that Santorum can say “a plan that includes everyone” with a straight face.

    PS. All the fields on this comment form except for the comment box seem to be missing their border or background, so they’re effectively invisible unless you hunt around with your mouse for the I-beam cursor.

  • ksegall

    Okay, I’ve solved the Captcha problem by migrating to Disqus comments, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time anyway. All should be perfectly clear now.