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, underneath the management of CEO Steve Jobs, will forge a future far totally different from its floundering, money-losing days of the early Nineteen 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., move previous as masterful advertising 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 attainable, the brand new advertising blitz served as a stalling tactic for Apple. It was an try to persuade shareholders and prospects that issues could be totally different underneath Jobs.
Whereas most followers seen Jobs’ return with pleasure, it didn’t go unnoticed that essentially the most vital factor he had performed thus far 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 really tried out “think different” upfront. Name it a insecurity. Or a savvy transfer to make “think different” appear much less advertising slogan and extra grass-roots spontaneity. Regardless of the case, this Apple advert marketing campaign was, effectively, totally different.
‘Think different’ advert marketing campaign returns Apple to its roots
Picture: 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 totally different Twentieth-century thinkers. (This wasn’t fully new territory for Apple: Its “Power is” advertisements from a few years earlier featured movie star endorsers like gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.)
Jobs himself was persuaded to report a model of the “Think Different” advert narration, however didn’t enable it to air for concern that folks would take into account it smug.
‘Think different’ stays a part of Apple’s DNA
Jobs initially wished to make use of one in every of Robin Williams’ inspirational speeches from the film Lifeless 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 in every of its “Your Verse” advertisements for iPad in 2014.
An Apple advert with a long-lasting impression
Apple discontinued its “Think Different” advert marketing campaign upon the arrival of the iMac G4 in 2002. Nevertheless, the advertisements’ impression continues to be felt to at the present time. It nonetheless serves as a type of guiding-light mission assertion, much like the Apple Values manifesto of the Eighties.
Present Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner, as an example, retains a duplicate of one of many unique “Think Different” advertisements in his workplace. And the corporate continues to replace the trademark with a European Patent and Trademark Workplace submitting. (Though folks must 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 assume Apple nonetheless lives as much as its “think different” mantra? Go away your feedback under.