{"id":3034,"date":"2024-11-15T15:58:29","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T14:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/?p=3034"},"modified":"2024-11-15T15:58:29","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T14:58:29","slug":"the-history-of-the-commodore-64-in-twelve-objects-3-we-promise-you-wont-use-the-commodore-64-more-than-24-hours-a-day-advertising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2024\/11\/15\/the-history-of-the-commodore-64-in-twelve-objects-3-we-promise-you-wont-use-the-commodore-64-more-than-24-hours-a-day-advertising\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of the Commodore 64 in Twelve Objects #3: &#8220;We promise you won&#8217;t use the Commodore 64 more than 24 Hours a Day&#8221; &#8211; advertising"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-3036 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/24hours-450x302.jpg\" alt=\"US ad\" width=\"554\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/24hours-450x302.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/24hours-150x101.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/24hours-768x516.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/24hours-1536x1032.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/24hours-1200x806.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/24hours.jpg 1999w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 554px) 85vw, 554px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Who is the Commodore 64 for? In the 1985 ad \u201cWe Promise you won\u2019t use the Commodore 64 More than 24 Hours a Day\u201d, the Commodore 64 is for the whole family, divided into familiar roles, and the machine guarantees the family\u2019s safety and unity. Research assistant Laurel Carney at MIT pointed out that the text, \u201cIt\u2019s 8 a.m. Do you know where your daughter is\u201d, echoes a 1960s-80s US public service announcement scaring parents to keep tabs on the whereabouts of their children, \u201cDo you know where your children are?\u201d In the ad, worries about safety speaks for getting a computer \u2013 because the computer is so addictive, the whole family will be kept safely home, with dad (who seems to get very little sleep) doing both office work and stocks, the son playing games and doing homework, the younger daughter solving puzzles, the elder daughter studying the solar system, and mom looking up recipes and managing the household with a database.<\/p>\n<p>Though Commodore lacked a global advertising strategy and left it to individual countries come up with their own, there was an early global pattern of focusing on the serious side of the C64, and only mentioning games as an aside.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Commodore 64 - Are You Keeping Up? (1983 Australian Commercial) 4K\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5uaYHYs4ubw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Compare the previous ad to this: The most referenced ad today is probably the Australian &#8220;Are you Keeping up with the Commodore&#8221;, famous for its catchy jingle, the implied threat that you may will fall behind if you don&#8217;t have the computer, and the bizarre hand gesture from the C64 users.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3035 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/198x-Commodore-Sweden-stay-inside-392x600.jpg\" alt=\"Swedish ad\" width=\"392\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/198x-Commodore-Sweden-stay-inside-392x600.jpg 392w, https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/198x-Commodore-Sweden-stay-inside-450x689.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/198x-Commodore-Sweden-stay-inside-98x150.jpg 98w, https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/198x-Commodore-Sweden-stay-inside.jpg 555w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 392px) 85vw, 392px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In many European countries, Commodore gradually accepted the machine&#8217;s status as a game computer and began to advertise it as such. This circa 1987 Swedish ad makes fun of apparently delinquent youths. &#8220;Where have you been? <em>Out<\/em>. What did you do? <em>Nothing<\/em>,&#8221; with the C64 being the better alternative, young people enjoying playing video games together. The acceptance of games also made it into the C64 packaging, sometimes themed around bundled games like <em>Batman<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Computer ads also have the feature that the dedicated computer owner \u2013 like me! \u2013 liked the ads because it said positive things about your computer in a public space. I did feel aligned with the Commodore company at the time and wanted to see more and better C64 ads.<\/p>\n<p>What ads inspired you?<\/p>\n<p><em>The full history is here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/c64\/history\/#obj3\">https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/c64\/history\/#obj3<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Coming November 22nd, Object #4: Impossible Mission<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who is the Commodore 64 for? In the 1985 ad \u201cWe Promise you won\u2019t use the Commodore 64 More than 24 Hours a Day\u201d, the Commodore 64 is for the whole family, divided into familiar roles, and the machine guarantees the family\u2019s safety and unity. Research assistant Laurel Carney at MIT pointed out that the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2024\/11\/15\/the-history-of-the-commodore-64-in-twelve-objects-3-we-promise-you-wont-use-the-commodore-64-more-than-24-hours-a-day-advertising\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The History of the Commodore 64 in Twelve Objects #3: &#8220;We promise you won&#8217;t use the Commodore 64 more than 24 Hours a Day&#8221; &#8211; advertising&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","hentry","category-c64","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3040,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}