Man Behind ‘1984’ (Macintosh) Ad Dies at Age 79

Guy Day, one of the most brilliant advertising minds of his time, passed away at the age of 79, several sources have confirmed. Day co-founded the acclaimed Chiat/Day advertising agency in Los Angeles with fellow advertising executive Jay Chiat in 1968. The man is credited with “turning the Super Bowl into an ‘advertising showcase,’” the LA Times reports, referring to the “1984” commercial that introduced the original Apple Macintosh.

According to his wife, Annette, Day died in his sleep of natural causes, on Saturday, at his home in Pflugerville, Texas. He was an army veteran who launched his career in the mail room of an ad agency in New York City in the 1950s, the LA Times informs. Various statements from the people who knew him close are included in the report.

· “He's an advertising icon,” Mel Newhoff, president of Strategic Marketing Partners in Westlake Village, who was hired by Day before the 1968 merger and spent eight years at Chiat/Day, said.
· “Guy was kind of the quiet creative force at Chiat/Day,” Newhoff said. “He was an excellent writer and motivated the creative teams inside the agency.”
· Mel Abert, who worked as an art director at Faust/Day and Chiat/Day, called Day “an amazing man.”
· “He had a tremendous intellect; certainly, that's what I was in awe of,” Abert, a partner in Abert Entity, an advertising and marketing firm in Manhattan Beach, shared. “Faust/Day and Chiat/Day were just full of extremely fun and brilliant people, and he was one of them.”

Now known as TBWA\Chiat\Day, Guy’s agency was described by Adweek as “the first to forge an industry outside of traditional centers like New York and Chicago, attracting national marketers and winning global acclaim for the agency's work.” AdWeek earlier named the Get a Mac series of ads “the Campaign of the Decade.” The series of commercials is well known for featuring two distinct characters, one portraying PC (Windows), the other, Mac. The people working at AdWeek’s AdFreak blog have even set up a place where all 66 “Get a Mac” ads can be watched with just as many clicks.

Oddly enough, AdWeek reports that Day was actually 77 (not 79, as the LA Times reports) when he passed away on Saturday, Jan. 16, citing people at TBWA\Chiat\Day who confirmed the tragic event to the former.