KREC QuizNet

1. This product was introduced in 1984 on a 60 second Superbowl ad. The advertisement featured a Bladerunneresque vision of '1984' --an Orwellian Big Brother prosletylizing to mindless zombies, and a Winston Smith like lone rebel. Although the company spent over $3 mil. on the advert, it was never aired again. It received numerous awards including Emmy's and was voted as the best advert of the century. The product being introduced was however never shown in the advert. The tagline went "You will see why 1984 will not be like 1984". [ Hint: The follow-up ad was shown in the 1985 Superbowl and was titled "Lemmings".]
Answer me this...
(a) Which company was targetted as Big Brother?
(b) Who directed the advert?
(c) What was the product?

2. When the Big Brother company (see Q.1) announced their entry into the market. The company which aired the Big Brother ad., released a full page ad in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The ad congratulated the Big Brother company for entering the fray.
(a) What was the product the big brother company introduced?
(b) What was the year?

3. The codename for this product under development was christened after a famous astronomer. The astronomer was displeased that his name was being used without consent. He asked the company to drop the codename. The product codename was changed to BHA (for "Butt Head Astronomer") . The astronomer sued the company, and settled out of court. The company was pursued to change the codename by their lawyers. The codename was changed to LAW (for "Lawyers are Wimps").
Answer me this...
(a) Who was the astronomer?
(b) What was the product?

4. The founder of this company was a student of Neem Karoli Baba. He is supposed to be blessed with a "Reality Distortion Field" (RDF)-- apparently because of his powers of persuasion (and his magic Electric Kool-Aid ;-). His latest movie was a runaway hit in the US. (Hint: He was the only walk-in customer of Cray Computers...)

Answer me this:
(a) Who are we talking about?
(b) What is his latest movie ...

5. When this product was first introduced, it come in only one color. The demand was strong for other colors. The CEO replied, "You can have it any color as long as it is .... " (of course he was alluding...). The latest incarnation of one of this companies products comes in five fruity flavors - Grape, Tangerine, Strawberry, Blueberry and Lime.

(a) Name the product.
(b) What was the original color
(c) Their other products were named after different species(?) of a popular fruit. Name all the fruits ...

6. When a competitor introduced their rip-off product in 1995, the response of this company was in form of a cryptic full page ad reading "C:>NGRAT.W95" in major newspapers around the world.

Answer me this:
(a) What was the product being released
(b) What was the theme song (Hint: it featured the line, "Makes a grown man cry".

7. This company had to pull one of its ads from Hong Kong/Taiwan because of a controversial personality featured in their ads. The controversial personality was replaced by a famous woman pilot.

Answer me this :
(a) Name the controversial personality
(b) Who replaced the controversial personality?
(c) Name the ungrammatical tagline for the ads.

8. Despite its fabulous innovation, this product turned out to be a dud. A butt-end of numerous jokes. The Doonesbury comic strip chided it for a week (Gary Trudeau was sent a successor, he loved it and still uses it...). The Simpsons (TV show) spoofed it (It was shown translating "Beat up Martin" as "Eat up Martha". The product was a success in vertical markets (hospitals) but was put to its miserable existance.

(a) What was the product
(b) What generic term did it introduce into the Geek Lexicon

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