September 28, 1997: Apple debuts its iconic “Think Different” advert marketing campaign. The tv business aligns the troubled laptop firm with a few of historical past’s most celebrated freethinking rebels.
Probably the most well-known tagline in Apple historical past, “Think Different” doesn’t simply articulate how Cupertino differs from its opponents. It additionally highlights how Apple, beneath the management of CEO Steve Jobs, will forge a future far completely different from its floundering, money-losing days of the early Nineties.
Apple ‘Think different’ advert marketing campaign
Narrated by actor Richard Dreyfuss, the “Think Different” TV spot begins out with an immediately memorable salute to counterculture beliefs.
“Here’s to the crazy ones,” Dreyfuss intones. “The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers — the round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”
Black-and-white photos of greater than a dozen Twentieth-century visionaries, from Albert Einstein and Buckminster Fuller to John Lennon and Martin Luther King Jr., movement previous as masterful advertising and marketing copy praises the ability of daring concepts.
The spot ends with the highly effective (and grammatically questionable) promoting slogan, “Think Different.”
Apple reunites with TBWA Chiat/Day a decade after ‘Lemmings’ catastrophe
The profitable “Think different” advert, and an accompanying set of posters, did greater than merely mark the return of Jobs to Apple. It was additionally the primary Apple advert produced by TBWA Chiat/Day in additional than a decade. (Cupertino ditched the advert company following its notorious “Lemmings” Apple business in 1985, the identical 12 months Jobs departed the corporate.)
In essentially the most cynical phrases doable, the brand new advertising and marketing blitz served as a stalling tactic for Apple. It was an try to persuade shareholders and prospects that issues could be completely different beneath Jobs.
Whereas most followers considered Jobs’ return with pleasure, it didn’t go unnoticed that essentially the most vital factor he had completed up to now was to announce one of many largest quarterly losses in Apple historical past.
Not like most issues that come out of Cupertino with no forewarning, Apple truly tried out “think different” upfront. Name it a insecurity. Or a savvy transfer to make “think different” appear much less advertising and marketing slogan and extra grass-roots spontaneity. Regardless of the case, this Apple advert marketing campaign was, effectively, completely different.
‘Think different’ advert marketing campaign returns Apple to its roots
Photograph: William J Sisti/Flickr CC
As I detailed in a earlier “Today in Apple history” installment, Jobs tried out the phrase in entrance of an viewers on the 1997 Macworld Expo. In doing so, he was “planting the seeds for the ad so that it would seem more organic when Apple debuted the [finished spots].”
The advert copy itself sprang from copywriters Rob Siltanen and Ken Segall (the latter of whom additionally named the iMac).
The “think different” line got here from Craig Tanimoto. He additionally had the concept of pairing up Apple with completely different Twentieth-century thinkers. (This wasn’t fully new territory for Apple: Its “Power is” advertisements from a few years earlier featured celeb endorsers like gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.)
Jobs himself was persuaded to document a model of the “Think Different” advert narration, however didn’t enable it to air for worry that individuals would think about it smug.
‘Think different’ stays a part of Apple’s DNA
Jobs initially wished to make use of one among Robin Williams’ inspirational speeches from the film Useless Poets Society for the business, till Siltanen and Segall wrote the “Here’s to the crazy ones” copy.
This concept clearly caught round with somebody at Apple, nonetheless. The corporate wound up utilizing the Williams audio pattern for one among its “Your Verse” advertisements for iPad in 2014.
An Apple advert with a long-lasting affect
Apple discontinued its “Think Different” advert marketing campaign upon the arrival of the iMac G4 in 2002. Nonetheless, the advertisements’ affect continues to be felt to at the present time. It nonetheless serves as a sort of guiding-light mission assertion, just like the Apple Values manifesto of the Nineteen Eighties.
Present Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner, for example, retains a replica of one of many authentic “Think Different” advertisements in his workplace. And the corporate continues to replace the trademark with a European Patent and Trademark Workplace submitting. (Though folks ought to be suggested to not argue with Phil Schiller that trendy Apple is something like Apple circa 1997!)
What’s your favourite Apple business? Do you suppose Apple nonetheless lives as much as its “think different” mantra? Depart your feedback beneath.