The greatest ad campaign in Apple history

Apple 1997 has nothing to do with Apple today: no iPhone, iPad, iPod or iMac. The company was in serious trouble at the time, with no viable products, lack of focus and on the verge of collapse. The only thing Apple did right was bring back Steve Jobs.

Apple Image Restoration

When he returned to the company he founded in the mid-1970s, Mr. Jobs knew that much needed to be done to get Apple on the right track. The press lost interest in Apple, the Apple brand was ruined, and it became dull with boring leadership and products. As Steve Jobs slowly regained power, one of his top priorities was to restore Apple’s image. At the time, Apple was running more than 25 ad campaigns. Each domestic and foreign office has a different advertisement, unrelated to the headquarters. The advertising agency that Apple is hiring, BBDO, chooses to focus on individual products and specifications. These efforts failed to allay customers’ fears that Apple was about to collapse.

For a change, Steve Jobs invited three advertising agencies to present the idea. Lee Clow, Creative Director of Chiat/Day, is one of them. Lee Clow collaborated with Mr. Jobs in the famous “1984” Macintosh commercial. On August 3, 1997, he introduced a new slogan for Apple’s ads, which was “Think Different”. Steve Jobs was happy with this idea and changed it a bit, instead of using anonymous characters, he wanted to invite stars and celebrities to participate in the campaign.

Chiat/Day once again became an advertising agency for Apple and Lee Clow frequented it. In order to “suppress” advertising at Apple, the new campaign is managed by the Chiat/Day office in all domestic and international markets. Although Chiat/Day was responsible for producing the ad, Mr. Jobs and a few Apple communications staff were in charge of evaluating all stages. He often travels between the two offices himself to watch the clip instead of through email or zip file.

Steve Jobs gave Chiat/Day 17 days to complete the campaign after approving the idea. These include television commercials and outdoor billboard ads in major cities such as Los Angeles and New York. Usually, a campaign takes longer for image copyrights. However, Mr. Jobs was especially useful when Mr. Clow and his team wanted to use images of characters like Joan Baez, Yoko Ono.

The TV commercial was produced using the Adobe AfterEffects program on a Macintosh computer. Jennifer Gulab, the person in charge, worked closely with Mr. Jobs via satellite communication. The two are in daily contact to figure out which images to use, music and voiceovers. Richard Dreyfus was the one who read the poem “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” written by Chiat/Day author Craig Tanimoto. It was used throughout the campaign.

The first rule of the campaign is that no product appears in the ad. Therefore, Mr. Clow and the creative team are quite worried about exploiting the images of the artists. Instead of receiving remuneration, all participants donate money and in kind (computer equipment) to charities or nonprofits of their choice.

Outdoor and newspaper billboard ads are also unique. Instead of sticking to general computer magazines, Apple buys ads in fashion magazines and trending magazines. While the computer industry doesn’t usually buy outdoor advertising, Chiat/Day hires hundreds of major locations in New York and Los Angeles to do so.

A pure brand campaign

The campaign officially launched on September 28, 1997 and immediately became famous. Unlike previous major campaigns of Apple, Think Different was warmly received by the press and was a turning point for “missing apple”. Two days later, on September 30, Steve Jobs held a party for company employees at his home in Palo Alto, where he talked about the campaign and the future of Apple. Here, he asserts that Apple has regained the image it lost in the 90s in just “15, 30 or 60 seconds”.

Apple spent $90 million on the campaign. The 60-second commercial was broadcast during prime time on television. After the first campaign, Apple sent promotional pictures to schools across the country, with images of various stars such as Pablo Picasso, Jane Goodall, Ron Howard. Apple maintained the campaign until 2002.

Think Different has had a positive impact on Apple’s revenue. In April 1998, the company reported a profit for two consecutive quarters after nearly two years of loss of $2 billion. The target audience of the campaign is customers who have purchased Apple products. According to Rohna Hamilton, a marketing representative of Apple, their number one priority is to make people who have bought Apple products realize they are still here and fighting for the existence of the brand.

To appeal to this audience, the campaign emphasized Apple’s innovative roots. The people who appear in the campaign are all bold thinkers, not only excelling in a certain field but also independent, progressive people, changing the world in their way. By connecting with characters like Muhammad Ali, Bob Dylan, Alberg Einstein, Apple clearly wants to convey a message about itself and its products. It’s an innovative company with innovative, world-changing users. With that theme, Apple hopes to appeal to an audience like artists, illustrators, designers, students, who value their own creativity and consider themselves to be non-digital. bronze. As Brandweek commented, Think Different is not aimed at everyone.

Why is Think Different so effective? Sometimes, instead of saying who they are, and what they stand for, a company can build its brand by saying who they are not. Think Different is not just a call to action, it’s a call to hands. Just two words are more powerful than a magazine advertisement. Above all, Think Different is powerful because of the emotion it conveys: No product images, no feature gimmicks, no device talk. It is a simple and pure branding campaign. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 1998, Steve Jobs explained: “Think Different honors the soul of the Apple brand – people with a passion to change the world for the better.”

In 1998, Apple and the Chiat/Day team won an Emmy for best television commercial. In 2000, the Think Different campaign won the Grand Effie Award for the most effective advertising campaign in the US. Today, Think Different posters sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay. Many people think that, without Think Different, there would be no Apple of today.

According to Du Lam