Amaya Toman The year is 1997, and the then CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, presents the brand new slogan of the apple company, which reads "Think Different", at the Macworld Expo. Among other things, Apple wants to say to the whole world that the dark era of the unsuccessful years is finally over and the Cupertino company is ready to head towards a better future. What did the beginning of Apple's new stage look like? And what role did advertising and marketing play here?
Return time
The year 1997 and the official introduction of the company's new slogan heralded the beginning of one of the most iconic Apple advertising campaigns since the triumphant "1984" spot. "Think Different" was in many ways a symbol of Apple's spectacular return to the limelight of the technology market. But it also became a symbol of many changes. The spot "Think Different" was the first advertisement for Apple, in the creation of which TBWA Chiat/Day participated after more than ten years. The Apple company originally parted ways with it in 1985 after the failure of the "Lemmings" commercial, replacing it with rival agency BBDO. But everything changed with Jobs' return to the head of the company.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFEarBzelBs
The slogan "Think Different" itself is the work of Craig Tanimoto, copywriter of the agency TBWA Chiat/Day. Originally, however, Tanimoto toyed with the idea of a rhyme about computers in the style of Dr. Seuss. The poem did not catch on, but Tanimoto liked two words in it: "Think different". Although the given word combination was not grammatically perfect, Tanimoto was clear. “It made my heart skip a beat because no one had really expressed this idea to Apple,” Tanimoto said. "I looked at a picture of Thomas Edison and thought 'Think Different.' Then I made a tiny sketch of Edison, wrote those words next to it and drew a miniature Apple logo,” he added. The text "Here's to the crazy ones", which sounds in the Think Different spot, was written by other copywriters - Rob Siltanen and Ken Segall, who became famous among others as "the man who named the iMac".
Audience approved
Although the campaign was not ready at the time of the Macworld Expo, Jobs decided to test its keywords on the audience there. He thus laid the foundations for a legendary advertisement that is still talked about today. “I'd like to say a little bit about Apple, about the brand and what that brand means to many of us. You know, I think you always had to be a little bit different to buy an Apple computer. When we came up with the Apple II, we needed to start thinking about computers differently. Computers were something you could see in movies where they usually took up giant rooms. They weren't something you could have on your desk. You had to think differently because there wasn't even any software to begin with. When the first computer came to school where there was no computer before, you had to think differently. You must have thought differently when you bought your first Mac. It was a completely different computer, it worked in a completely different way, it required a completely different part of your brain to work. And he opened up a lot of people who thought differently to the world of computers... And I think you still have to think differently to buy an Apple computer.”
Apple's "Think Different" campaign ended in 2002 with the arrival of the iMac G4. But the influence of its main slogan was still felt - the spirit of the campaign lived on, similar to the 1984 spot. It is known that the current CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, still keeps several recordings of the "Think Different" commercial in his office.
Source: Cult of Mac
