February 8, 1998: Flaming Escargot!

If you're an Apple fan it is often difficult to decide just who the competition is. Is Apple competing against the operating system made by Microsoft? The low cost machines sold via mail order by Dell? The Intel chip that powers most of the world's PCs? In 2006 Intel is obviously not a competitor; they are a major supplier. The case was not always so clear.

In fact, at one time Apple saw Intel as not only a competitor but as a reason to switch to the Mac. Apple felt so strongly that Intel chips were a liability that they created an ad starring a snail, aimed squarely at Intel chips. The snail moved slowly across the screen while saddled with a Pentium II chip. The voiceover disabuses viewers of the notion that the Pentium II is the fastest chip available and informs them that the G3 chip inside every PowerMac is up to twice as fast.

The commercials seemed to work, sales of the G3 PowerMacs were brisk and similar ads followed. The famous "snail ad" began running this month in 1998.

A Small quicktime movie of the Snail Advertisement