Think Different

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"Think Different" is an advertising slogan created for Apple Computer in 1997 by the Los Angeles office of advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day[1]. It was used in a famous television commercial, several print advertisements, and several television advertisements for Apple products. Apple's use of the slogan was discontinued with the start of the Apple Switch ad campaign in 2002. The slogan may have been a play on the venerable IBM Think motto coined by Thomas J. Watson.

Some believe a grammatically correct version of the slogan would be: "Think Differently". However, the word different was not intended to be an adverb in this case but rather a "fanciful category" like "Think Playful" or "Think Change".

Contents

[edit] Television commercials

Significantly shortened versions of the text were used in two television commercials titled "Crazy Ones" directed by Chiat/Day's Jennifer Golub and art directed along with Jessica Schulman and Yvonne Smith, with a voiceover narrated by Richard Dreyfuss.

The one-minute commercial featured black and white video footage of significant historical people of the past, including (in order) Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon (with Yoko Ono), R. Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Graham, Jim Henson (with Kermit the Frog), Frank Lloyd Wright and Pablo Picasso. The commercial ends with an image of a young girl, Shaan Sahota, opening her closed eyes, as if to see the possibilities before her.

The thirty-second commercial used many of the people above, but closed with Jerry Seinfeld, instead of the young girl. In order: Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, Martha Graham, Muhammad Ali, Alfred Hitchcock, Mahatma Gandhi, Jim Henson, Maria Callas, Picasso, and Jerry Seinfeld. This commercial aired only once, during the series finale of Seinfeld.

[edit] Print advertisements

Print advertisements from the campaign were published in many mainstream magazines such as Newsweek and Time. Sometimes these were traditional advertisements, prominently featuring the company's computers or consumer electronics along with the slogan. However, there was also another series of print ads that were more focused on brand image than specific products. These were created as a tribute to the creative innovators that truly changed the world by thinking in ways others never did. They featured a portrait of one of the historic figures shown in the television ad, with a small Apple logo and the words "Think Different" in one corner, with no reference to the company's products

[edit] Staff of Preparation

The campaign was made almost entirely in-house by the team at TBWA\Chiat\Day\Los Angeles:

Chairman and chief creative officer worldwide & account director: Lee Clow. Creative directors: Ken Segall, Rob Siltanen, Eric Grunbaum, Amy Moorman. Executive producer, director & art director: Jennifer Golub. Art directors: Jessica Schulman, Margaret Midgett, Susan Alinsangan. Copywriter: Craig Tanimoto. Senior editor of the in-house arm, Venice Beach Editorial: Dan Bootzin. Stock photo and film research Susan Nickerson, owner and head stock-footage researcher, with Nickerson Research.

[edit] Text

“

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

 ”

[edit] Revivals

[edit] Mac OS X

The TextEdit application icon from Mac OS X Leopard, which displays a subset of the Think Different text

This text has been reused in Mac OS X Leopard on the high-resolution icon for TextEdit.

[edit] Apple.com

On three separate occasions, the Apple homepage featured images of notable figures not originally part of the campaign alongside the "Think Different" slogan:

[edit] Parodies

The Think Different campaign was the subject of numerous satirical advertisements by culture jammer Ron English, in which the familiar phrase and logo were represented accompanied by pictures of Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, and Bill Gates.

In December 2000, Apple's legal department sent a cease and desist letter to the Church of Satan over a parody they created using the image of Anton LaVey. Peter H. Gilmore, the webmaster and administrator of the organization eventually took the parody down, but put up a pagedisputing the claim.

Hunter Cressall made a parody of Apple's commercials, detailing problems he has had with Macs. After the movie, the slogan "Crash Different" is displayed.

Wu-Tang Meets Indie Culture is an album from this series.

The most recent parody features the voiceover of the original commercial over a list of third-party iPhone applications. This video was released on YouTube shortly after the iPhone 1.1.1 update disabled all of the third-party apps. It suggested that Apple was being hypocritical about their actions.

The episode Mypods and Boomsticks of The Simpsons pokes fun at the slogan, writing it "Think Differently"

[edit] References

  1. ^ 'Think Different': The Ad Campaign that Restored Apple's Reputation. Retrieved August 12, 2008

[edit] External links

[edit] The 60-sec. version of the television ad

[edit] The 30-sec. version of the television ad

[edit] One-person versions of the television ad

[edit] Spoofs

[edit] Other ads with the "Think Different" slogan

[edit] Miscellaneous

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