APPLE | L'HÉRITIER | 1989
"People Are Hired to Act, Not to Think" / Apple "L'HÉRITIER"
In the back seat of a Rolls Royce, a father tells his son: "The people who work for you aren't there to think. They're there to do as they're told." Cold words. And that discomfort was exactly the trap.
The problem
In 1989, Apple was facing its first-ever drop in sales and a 20% fall in its stock price. The original request was simply for two 15-second commercials announcing new Macintosh features, but the creative team wanted to do something much bigger.
The insight
This line is a caricature of the authoritarian management mindset found in big corporations like IBM. "Once people start thinking, they want to change things. That's not their job." By letting that attitude speak for itself, the ad makes Apple's own position stand out by contrast.
The idea
Produced by CLM BBDO and directed by Claude Miller, the ad is set in a steel factory in Belgium. An elderly businessman gives a tour of the plant, telling his son, "All of this will be yours." At the end, the face of a young woman in a hard hat is cut in, and the tone suddenly softens. The narration closes it out: "There are many ways to run a company. This is one of them. Fortunately, there are others."
What happened
Because the one-minute commercial was expensive to air, it only ran 17 times. Even so, it won a Gold Lion at Cannes Lions.
Afterthought
Isn't it amazing that something aired just 17 times went on to become part of advertising history? This is an ad that sold an idea, not a product. By showing nothing but IBM's coldness, it gets across Apple's warmth without ever saying a word about it. I really love the power of that kind of contrast.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 1989
