September 28, 1997: Apple debuts its iconic “Assume Totally different” advert marketing campaign. The tv business aligns the troubled pc firm with a few of historical past’s most celebrated freethinking rebels.
Probably the most well-known tagline in Apple historical past, “Assume Totally different” doesn’t simply articulate how Cupertino differs from its rivals. 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 Nineties.
Apple ‘Assume totally different’ advert marketing campaign
Narrated by actor Richard Dreyfuss, the “Assume Totally different” TV spot begins out with an immediately memorable salute to counterculture beliefs.
“Right here’s to the loopy ones,” Dreyfuss intones. “The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers — the spherical pegs within the sq. holes. Those who see issues otherwise.”
Black-and-white photographs of greater than a dozen Twentieth-century visionaries, from Albert Einstein and Buckminster Fuller to John Lennon and Martin Luther King Jr., circulate previous as masterful advertising and marketing copy praises the facility of daring concepts.
The spot ends with the highly effective (and grammatically questionable) promoting slogan, “Assume Totally different.”
Apple reunites with TBWA Chiat/Day a decade after ‘Lemmings’ catastrophe
The profitable “Assume totally 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 yr Jobs departed the corporate.)
In probably the most cynical phrases potential, 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 totally different underneath Jobs.
Whereas most followers considered Jobs’ return with pleasure, it didn’t go unnoticed that probably the most vital factor he had finished thus far was to announce one of many largest quarterly losses in Apple historical past.
In contrast to most issues that come out of Cupertino with no forewarning, Apple really tried out “suppose totally different” upfront. Name it a insecurity. Or a savvy transfer to make “suppose totally different” appear much less advertising and marketing slogan and extra grass-roots spontaneity. Regardless of the case, this Apple advert marketing campaign was, effectively, totally different.
‘Assume totally different’ advert marketing campaign returns Apple to its roots
Photograph: William J Sisti/Flickr CC
As I detailed in a earlier “At this time in Apple historical past” 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 advert in order that it will appear extra natural 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 “suppose totally different” line got here from Craig Tanimoto. He additionally had the thought of pairing up Apple with totally different Twentieth-century thinkers. (This wasn’t totally new territory for Apple: Its “Energy 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 “Assume Totally different” advert narration, however didn’t permit it to air for worry that individuals would contemplate it conceited.
‘Assume totally different’ stays a part of Apple’s DNA
Jobs initially needed to make use of certainly one of Robin Williams’ inspirational speeches from the film Lifeless Poets Society for the business, till Siltanen and Segall wrote the “Right here’s to the loopy ones” copy.
This concept clearly caught round with somebody at Apple, nevertheless. The corporate wound up utilizing the Williams audio pattern for certainly one of its “Your Verse” advertisements for iPad in 2014.
An Apple advert with a long-lasting influence
Apple discontinued its “Assume Totally different” advert marketing campaign upon the arrival of the iMac G4 in 2002. Nonetheless, the advertisements’ influence continues to be felt to at the present time. It nonetheless serves as a form of guiding-light mission assertion, just like the Apple Values manifesto of the Eighties.
Present Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner, as an example, retains a replica of one of many authentic “Assume Totally 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 fashionable Apple is something like Apple circa 1997!)
What’s your favourite Apple business? Do you suppose Apple nonetheless lives as much as its “suppose totally different” mantra? Depart your feedback under.