Here's why Apple's "1984" ad ran before the Super Bowl in the middle of the night in Idaho

Twin Falls, Idaho is a small place known for a few things. Evel Knievel jumped over the Snake River Canyon there. Chobani has a factory in town. And it's one of the first places audiences saw one of the most influential advertisements in history. Except it was a pretty small audience. 

Apple's Ridley Scott-directed "1984" ad broke new ground when it ran at the Super Bowl that year. As we reported in the "Apple 1984" episode of Household Name, it surprised by not showing the product or its features as part of its message. Part of the legend is that the ad only ran once, at the Super Bowl. It's considered part of the brilliance of the strategy, but that's not true. It ran in some movie theaters before the football game, and it ran on, KMVT, a tiny CBS affiliate in Twin Falls just before midnight on December 31, 1983. 

Tom Frank was the man who put the ad on the air, burying it in a timeslot that would ensure as few viewers as possible. That was the point. Chiat/Day, Apple's ad agency then, wanted to ensure the ad ran in 1983 so it'd qualify for that year's advertising awards, so it asked KMVT to run the ad. 

Frank was single, and volunteered to work the holiday shift. And as he tells Household Name in this bonus segment, the appeal was how few people were watching. The station often aired old movies late at night. Most were terrible. One time an operator ran a movie upside down and backwards and no one called to complain. So it was the perfect time to play a big ad and get as little attention as possible. 

Click play below to hear Tom Frank's story of how he became a footnote in the history of the most famous TV ad of all time. 

And you can subscribe for free to Household Name and listen to the full episode here. 

 

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