I assume that many of you have seen the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in which Willy Wonka, the owner of a chocolate factory, held a contest in which he offered a golden ticket to those who bought his chocolate. People who found the golden ticket in a chocolate wrapper were invited to visit Willie Wonka's factory, a factory that no one had entered for a very long time. Well, based on the same scenario, Steve Jobs wanted to offer a golden ticket to the person who buys the 1 millionth Mac, but unfortunately he couldn't.
Steve's idea was to do a Willy Wonka with it. Just as Wonka did in the movie, Steve wanted to put a golden certificate representing the millionth iMac inside the box of one iMac, and publicize that fact. Whoever opened the lucky iMac box would be refunded the purchase price and be flown to Cupertino, where he or she (and, presumably, the accompanying family) would be taken on a tour of the Apple campus. Steve had already instructed his internal creative group to design a prototype golden certificate, which he shared with us. But the killer was that Steve wanted to go all out on this. He wanted to meet the lucky winner in full Willy Wonka garb. Yes, complete with top hat and tails.
The person who found the golden ticket in the iMac box was going to receive back the money spent on purchasing the product and was going to arrive at the Apple campus where they would see the company's buildings. Unfortunately, Steve Jobs' plan was not implemented due to California laws, but what he wanted to do is interesting. This information was obtained from the book Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success in which an author presents interesting information about how Apple works.
