AT&T | Ads accurately predicted the future: ‘You Will’ ad campaign 1993-1994
March 15, 2011
These ads featuring eerily familiar (yet-to-be-created technologies) were produced by AT&T and broadcast on mainstream television from 1993-1994.
A savvy YouTuber culled them together in one convenient spot (video above) — “FunkyWitDaSysTm” says: “I could never find a complete compilation of all of these videos, so I put all 7 together and uploaded it for the world. Looking back on these ads, I remember how moved I was when I first saw them. How, when I got to school on Monday morning, kids would be talking about some new ‘You Will’ ad we saw during The Simpsons the night before.
“And now, 17 years later, I see that these commercials were eerily prophetic. Seriously, the only one of these things that I don’t do or haven’t done are faxing from the beach (although I e-mail, mms, and upload to the Web all manner of pics and vids) and use a vioce-activated lock on my apartment door. Webcams, ez-pay, self-checkout, GPS, Wi-Fi/WAN/3G/4G, ATMs for tickets and driver licenses, on-demand video/Tivo, realtime online multi-user video project collaboration, wristwatch cellphones — we have almost everything.
“The only things we don’t actually have are the automated voice-activated software agent (still in the works), fax from the beach (fax is dead), and videophone-booths (instead, video cell phones have existed since about 2003 and may even be in the next iPhone). I was contacted by AT&T corporate; they want to use my video for a presentation. They’re going to upscale the resolution and send me a copy when they’re done. Hopefully, they’ll let me upload it here to replace this one!”
Video Source: AT&T
Comments (4)
by macewan
Fax use is still alive and well with procurement at nuclear power plants. Now we use MyFax.com to handle the docs & an iPad app to markup our pricing on these RFQs.
by RobPreece
I think many of these technologies were actually in use in 1993 (I was working on a low-cost desktop videoconferencing program then so I know that part was available). I’d like to do the whole shopping cart thing. Bar codes are such a pain. Not sure why RFID hasn’t been more universally adopted. Still, it’s fun to see things that were seen as futuristic not too long ago–and the way they missed the boat on others (faxing from your iPad–I don’t think so).
by Logic
This is why I’m continually astonished that so many people are resistant to Ray’s ideas. I remember these ads in 1993/94. They were magical, mysterious, inspiring. The technology seemed so futuristic. Some of those ads look like they could’ve been filmed today using actual technology. Thanks for pursuing a high-resolution version of these ads. They really drive the point home.
by Pawelotti
Indeed, Logic. I share your continuous astonishment regarding resistance to Ray’s ideas. Just 15 years ago these technologies seemed almost “crazy”. Now we use them and some of the youngest generations have never known a world without them. People have great problems extrapolating the exponential, that’s all. But what’s more, I am sure many of the same people have forgotten just how much technological progress we’ve made in the last two decades.