Apple’s ‘1984’ ad won big at Cannes Lions

In 1984, Apple ran an award-winning Super Bowl commercial

Directed by Ridley Scott and a winner at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the clip features a heroine flinging a sledgehammer at a Big Brother-style figure delivering a speech. As the screen shatters, a voiceover proclaims that Apple's release of the Macintosh will ensure, "1984 won't be like '1984.'"

Apple’s '1984' ad aired once during the game and permanently shaped their advertising

During Super Bowl XVIII, Apple aired its dystopian “1984” commercial once to a mass audience, introducing the Macintosh and positioning Apple as a challenger to IBM’s dominance in personal computing.

The best Cannes Lions winners of all time

Cannes Lions has been highlighting the best campaigns for over 70 years. This list brings together nine of the best from the festival’s history, with standouts from Mastercard, Adidas, and Burger King.

Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s 'Think Different' marketing campaign

Jobs introduced the now-iconic “Think Different” marketing campaign. It won numerous awards, symbolized Apple’s new era under Jobs, and showed off his understanding of branding.

The first Cannes Lions winner

The first Cannes Lions award went to the German toothpaste brand Chlorodont for the ad “Il Circo,” a surreal short film featuring dancers, a wild animal, and a snake charmer—all constructed from Chlorodont’s product.

The 1960s through 1980s is generally considered the ‘Golden Age of Advertising’

This time period spawned some of history’s most well-known ad campaigns, from "I Heart NY" to Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign. In this video from the 4As (the American Association of Advertising Agencies), advertising executive Jerry Della Femina reflects on the most creative ads of the era.

The 2022 best picture winner, 'CODA,' was an Apple+ original

Streaming has changed more than how we watch movies—it's changed the way we recognize them during awards season. When movie theaters shut down during the early days of the pandemic, studios had no choice but to release their films on streaming. Once the shift occurred, there was no going back.

Steve Jobs revolutionized animated filmmaking

Steve Jobs left his mark beyond Apple with Pixar, the animated studio he acquired in 1986. In addition to pushing Pixar to focus on storytelling, Jobs led the studio to revolutionize animation via computer-generated imagery.

Throughout the 1980s, the Times Square ball was a giant apple

From 1981 to 1988, the sparkling ball was replaced by a “big apple” to promote the city’s “I Love New York” tourism campaign. This broadcast is from the apple’s first year, where one announcer proclaims, “It’s great! It’s beautiful!”

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume

The video ad, starring actress Nicole Kidman, aired in 2004 and cost roughly $33M at the time (when accounting for inflation, that would be roughly $57M in 2026). You can watch the ad spot in full here.

The iPhone reshaped culture, media, and communication through innovation

Cultural moments, such as Ellen's viral Oscars selfie and Taylor Swift's iPhone Notes statement, have demonstrated how deeply integrated the device has become into society. The film "Tangerine" and Kendrick Lamar's "Pride" were created with the iPhone, underscoring its use in media creation.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Colin Kaepernick’s ad with Nike won an Emmy

Colin Kaepernick’s 2018 “Dream Crazy” ad with Nike became a controversial touchpoint for American politics. While many liberals applauded Nike for siding with Kaepernick’s BLM protests, many conservatives boycotted and criticized the company.

How Netflix's sound logo 'Tudum' was designed as a key sonic differentiator

The Netflix sound logo—called by the company "Tudum!"—debuted in 2015 and has become one of the world's most iconic sound symbols, designed to provoke anticipation. An immense amount of creative work went into designing this three-second sonic marker, which is heard daily worldwide by millions. Key players in its existence weigh in on its creation in this absorbing episode.

Nike’s slogan was inspired by a death row inmate’s last words

Advertising superstar Dan Wieden of legendary advertising agency Widen+Kennedy said he got inspiration for Nike’s “Just do it” from an inmate’s last words on death row. Wieden said the way the inmate talked about facing uncertainty inspired him.

Ogilvy won the Shell account with a last-minute flight from New York to London

When Shell was searching for a new ad agency, David Ogilvy filled out the pitch questionnaire himself, planning to hand-deliver it to Shell’s President in New York. When he found out that the president was in London, Ogilvy hopped on a flight. This newsletter edition tells the full story of how Ogilvy’s grit and determination won Ogilvy & Mather the coveted Shell account.

In 2024, global ad spend surpassed $1T for the first time

Organizations like GroupM and WARC began predicting this record high in 2023. Five large tech companies (Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Alibaba, and TikTok parent ByteDance) were predicted to account for more than half of all global ad spend in 2024.

Some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters were designed by Drew Struzan

The artist is responsible for iconic posters advertising "Indiana Jones," "Hook," "The Goonies," and more. His distinctive style—sometimes painted by hand, sometimes drawn with an airbrush—defined the era of the family-friendly family blockbuster.

Pepsi uses augmented reality to prank people at a bus shelter

Commuters at a London bus stop have seen alien invasions, monsters from the sewers grabbing pedestrians and tigers running down the street as part of an elaborate advertising campaign.

How 'A Hard Day's Night' innovated popular culture

The Beatles' first film, "A Hard Day's Night," was groundbreaking, using innovative directorial techniques, the aesthetics of French New Wave, and slapstick class-based humor to effectively establish the model for the music video decades before the debut of MTV. This essay from a music educator breaks down how the film was received in 1964 and why it still resonates with new fans today.

Long before Coachella, Steve Wozniak attempted a similarly-minded festival

In 1982, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak was on a hiatus from Apple after a near-fatal plane crash. In his spare time, he decided to throw a festival that would bring together cutting-edge music and technology—a Woodstock for the 1980s. The result was the US Festival, an early ancestor of Coachella that brought world-class acts like Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Talking Heads, the Grateful Dead, and the Ramones to a rustic venue outside Los Angeles.

A deep dive into Christopher Nolan's 'Odyssey' adaptation

The "Oppenheimer" director's take on Homer's epic might be the most anticipated movie of the summer. Dockterman's profile of Nolan explores how he's become a Hollywood rarity: a director who balances box-office numbers and critical acclaim.

The Oscars considered the use of computer-assisted special effects in 'Tron' unfair

The 1982 film relied heavily on computer animation, so much so that the Academy Awards disqualified the film from its special effects category because they considered the computer-assisted graphics "cheating."

Disney chipped away at its debt by creating propaganda during World War II

Disney began producing training videos for the Navy and propaganda films for US involvement in World War II, including the shorts "Der Fuehrer's Face," "The Spirit of '43," and "Donald Gets Drafted." The effort provided a much-needed cash injection, allowing Disney to continue producing films.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

How the CIA used 'Animal Farm' as Cold War propaganda

After Orwell's death in 1950, undercover agents bought the book's film rights from his widow and got to work creating a family-friendly version of the story that would reinforce its anti-Soviet themes and downplay its criticisms of capitalism and sympathetic portrayal of Snowball, the Trotsky analog.

Atari's 'Pong', VCRs, and CD players all launched at CES

This roundup highlights major tech milestones at CES, including the launch of the Nintendo NES in 1985, the DVD in 1996, and the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift in 2013.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.