Rage Against the Machine

For the Super Bowl in 1984, Apple Computer released the commercial. The buzz was built-in because they pre-released how much it cost ($1M. When that number was considered much more than just 16% of a Mats Sundin per annum stipend), that they would only show it once, and they were introducing a product that (they said) would change the world. Not to mention, behind the scenes the rumour was that it was almost canned by some of the executive, adding to its lore. In the end, it was the most watched Super Bowl ad, and the lines to TV stations were jammed with people wondering what this ad was about, and what the hell a Macintosh was. It was buzz on steroids.



This ad worked for a number of reasons; on one level it succeeded because they had a villain. The man on the screen is IBM; the old, the boss, the controller of computing. Apple did something brilliant by responding quickly to them (and their vision of the future) by saying that a home computer can be fun, it is controlled by you and not a corporation, and it can fit not only in a large gray room, but in a backpack, too.

In racing we have not responded at all to the competition. I would argue we have a very good villain to take advantage of - casino gambling and online casinos. If you go there, you go there to get your head kicked-in and lose all your money. In fact, this is a mathematical certainty. In contrast, racing can be beaten and is a mind-puzzle for the ages.

Do me a favour: Rewatch the above commercial. Substitute the marching people with today's slot players, and the man on the screen for a greedy money-machine. When the screen explodes, the players are finally free to gamble using their minds, not their right arm.

Surely we have more to do to make this a winnable game, but it would be cool to try something to speak with one voice and get at the masses like this. If Apple can take on IBM, a business like racing should be able to take on a mind-numbing slot machine; maybe in exactly the same way.