Return to the Little Kingdom_ Steve Jobs and the Creation of Apple - Michael Moritz [56]
“Johnny Carson wouldn’t be bad,” Jobs said.
In the Valley of Superlatives dreaming up a fresh slogan for a new computer was a tricky business. For months the marketing managers at Mac had been scratching their heads trying to come up with a memorable phrase or line that would capture their computer’s virtues. At one time or another, depending on the shape, mood, and ingenuity of the speaker, Mac had been referred to as The Next Apple II, The Interface for the Eighties, The Crankless Computer, The Crankless Volkswagen, or The Crankless Mercedes. As a company, Apple had exhausted variations on the theme of the personal computer. It had annexed the definite article to describe the Apple II as The Personal Computer and shortly afterward announced (mustering a magnificently straight face) that it had actually invented the personal computer.
Competitors had countered with similar braggadocio. Digital Equipment Corporation’s advertisements read “We change the way the world thinks,” Radio Shack was calling itself “The biggest name in little computers” and the founder of Osborne Computer Corporation, before his company went bankrupt, compared himself to Henry Ford. As the slogan race escalated, Apple had launched multiple adjectives describing its best-selling machine as “the most personal computer,” a slogan that had spawned a mordant joke that Mac would simply become “the most most personal computer.”
Partly to avoid lame tag lines, Marcia Klein, head of the Apple account at the Regis McKenna Public Relations Agency, arrived at the Mac building one morning to have a chat with Mike Murray. She wanted to bat around some ideas for a slogan but also wanted to start preparing for encounters with the press. Dressed in an olive suit and firehouse-red lipstick, Klein brought a touch of plate-glass fashion to the Mac conference room where Murray waited in slacks, a blue sports shirt, and boating shoes.
After they had disposed of the amenities, Murray said, “Down the road we want people to think that when they’re hired in a new job they find pencils, a wastepaper basket, and a Mac. But that’s impossible to do off the bat. I’m trying to make a case that there’s a giant need for an appliance in the office. I’m pretty adamant about the appliance notion.”
Klein listened and asked how Mac would fit in among Apple’s other computers. “When somebody asks us about the Apple II or the Apple III, what are we going to say?”
“We don’t know what we’re going to say about the Apple III,” Murray admitted. “It’s something that just hasn’t been worked out. It’s a cop-out. We’ve got to be crystal clear about the future of the products. We cannot be really milquetoasty. People are hoping that maybe the Apple III will just go away.”
Klein summed up her aim: “We’re trying to convey the impression that the company has a general marketing plan, that there’s overall corporate positioning and that what we say when we introduce Lisa will be consistent with what we say when we introduce Mac.”
Murray sighed. “A lot of people tend to ignore us because it’s a real messy problem. Other people don’t realize the gravity of the problem.”
Klein began to explain to Murray how to cope with journalists. “The press prefer to have you talk to them. They prefer not to have a sales pitch with lights and mirrors. You don’t need anything as polished as slides. You just don’t need to be slick.”
“It’s hard to say Mac is warm and cuddly,” Murray said. “They’ll have to put their arms around it and say it’s warm and cuddly.”
“We’d like to come up with a phrase for all of society,” Klein said.
“Like desk appliance,” Murray said hopefully.
“We’ve got to come up with new language,” Klein said. “An appliance is old language. An appliance is something you buy at K-Mart. An appliance is boring and functional. It loses personality.”
“I don’t want to call it a