Extremely rare parody full-page Wall Street Journal newspaper advertisement printed by the Creative Services department of Apple Computer, with the bold uncensored headline, “Fuck you, Chiat/Day. Seriously.,” an in-house spoof printed as an acerbic alternative to Steve Jobs’s gracious full-page ‘thank you’ letter to the New York City advertising agency following Apple’s dismissal of the company on May 27, 1986. Jobs, then no longer with Apple, had his letter printed in The Wall Street Journal on the same day. It featured the famous headline: “Congratulations, Chiat/Day. Seriously.”
The realistic full-page ad, 15 x 23, reads, in full: “Congratulations. You think you're so smart. You really do. You think you won some big ones. You didn't. You were wrong all along. Apple doesn't stand for blondes with big hooters and a hammer. Apple stands for middle managers. The kind you push off cliffs. You said we could sell 128K Macs to business. Then you screwed up Test Drive. You said you needed an Apple III that worked to shoot an ad. Did you have to take our only one? You're washed up. Even Nike thinks so. And what about your big ideas? What about double page ads in The Wall Street Journal? If that was so smart, how come you guys run single page ads for yourselves in The Mercury News? No wonder we were losing money last year. We won't even mention how you guys named and priced Lisa, then changed your mind after the Macintosh intro. changed Listen. You're fired. And remember. We were real guys about it. We did the agency review dance. Thank God we didn't blow a million bucks on Super Bowl '86. And finally, just get one thing very straight: We don't need your kind of creative lunatics around here no more. Seriously. P.S. We want our hammer back.” The reverse of the page, which contains actual articles printed in the May 28, 1986 issue of The Wall Street Journal, bears an affixed photocopy of an Advertising Age article from June 30, 1986, which covers the spoof article’s leak and bears the headline, “‘Ad’ flips Chiat the bird – is it a cheap shot?” In fine condition. The consignor notes that several of these full-page ads were surreptitiously printed and placed into Wall Street Journal newspapers for Apple employees to discover.
A fascinating piece of Apple Computer history that reveals the internal frustrations of the company’s creative department with Chiat/Day, the agency responsible for some of Apple’s most memorable advertising campaigns, including the legendary ‘1984’ Super Bowl commercial, which introduced the Macintosh computer. When Apple parted ways with the agency in 1986, the decision was made under the leadership of then-CEO John Sculley, who opted to switch to the agency BBDO1. Steve Jobs, who had left Apple the previous year and collaborated closely with Lee Clow, the creative director at Chiat/Day, publicly criticized this move, suggesting it indicated a shift away from Apple’s innovative spirit. As such, his “Congratulations” letter to the agency was also an unsubtle parting shot at Apple.
From the collection of Dennis Gobets.
