“Two days after an advertising tease that captured the attention of nearly 100 million people during Super Bowl XVIII, Steve Jobs pulled the Macintosh out of a bag, inserted a disk into the machine and stood by as it talked,” Dan Farber reports for CNET. “Watching from the wings, an exhausted and exhilarated Mike Murray exhaled with relief as the charismatic Jobs took the fledgling Macintosh through its paces without a crash. As Apple’s head of marketing for the new machine, the 28-year-old Murray had spent nearly two years preparing for this moment.”
“Murray’s journey to Apple began during his studies for an MBA at Stanford in 1980. Situated in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford’s MBA program hosted brown-bag lunches where business executives came to talk about their companies and recruit talent,” Farber reports. “[Murray recounts], ‘A fellow who looked like a student, wearing jeans, a button-down shirt, a suit vest and a down-filled outer vest came into the room. Instead of sitting with the students, he walked down to the front of the room — these were small amphitheater rooms — and sat on top of a table, folded his legs and said, ‘Hi, I’m Steve Jobs.’ I immediately put my paper down and started listening to this guy.'”
“Murray decided on the spot that he had to work for Jobs,” Farber reports. “Murray joined the Mac team in March 1982. After the group’s interim director quit, Jobs made him the acting marketing director until ‘they could find someone good.’ They never did.”
“The “1984” commercial kicked off what would be a $15 million, 100-day Macintosh launch campaign,” Farber reports. However, Apple ended up “sending confusing messages, marketing the Macintosh as a business computer and at the same time advertising it as a computer you should take home and play with.”
Tons more in the full article here.