In fact, Apple’s introduction of the MacIntosh Computer used just one insertion of one television spot during a football game. That game, known as the Super Bowl, became the “mainstage” for all big-budget launches in the future.

The spot, “1984″, was directed by Ridley Scott who directed Bladerunner and Alien (among a number of other movies and television spots). You can see the spot by going here: http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/1984.html

So, the single ad placement seemed to do something for the Super Bowl and Ridley Scott, but what about Apple? Well, the ad is widely recognized as the “most effective” television spot in the history of advertising. This single ad launched an entire new generation of personal computers and changed the way we looked at them forever.

So, the short answer is, “no, a single ad is not a bad strategy – assuming it’s a strategy at all.”

Here’s a “small words” cure that I hope will clear things up:

Strategy – an over-arching plan to achieve a certain objective.

Tactics – the smaller, single actions that make up the strategy.

Ad – a single execution of an idea or concept.

Campaign – a series of ads that execute an idea or specific concept.

An ad (or campaign) can support more than one strategy – but generally speaking, ads (and campaigns) are more effective (meaning the communicate more clearly) when they try to support a single idea and/or strategy.

Still confused? I’m always willing to discuss these things in more detail either via our blog or on thep phone.

Thanks for writing,

Mike

It seems apparent that a single newspaper ad is a tactic. But what if the strategy is to use only one newspaper ad? Sure, probably a bad strategy, but enough of one to make my point. And the point is that I need a small-words cure for my lack of sophistication.