Think Different

"Think different" was an advertising slogan for Apple Computer (Apple Inc. as of 2007) in 1997 created by the Los Angeles office of advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. It was used in a television commercial, several print advertisements and a number of TV promos for Apple products. Apple's use of the slogan was discontinued with the start of the Apple Switch ad campaign in 2002.

Television commercials

Significantly shortened versions of the text were used in two television commercials, known as "Crazy Ones", directed by Chiat/Day's Jennifer Golub who also shared the art director credit with Jessica Schulman and Yvonne Smith. The voiceover was by Richard Dreyfuss. It was edited at Venice Beach Editorial, by Dan Bootzin, Chiat\Day's gifted in-house editor. Post-produced by Hunter Conner.

The words "think different" were created by Chiat/Day art director Craig Tanimoto. The text of the various versions of this commercial was written by Rob Siltanen and Ken Segall. Music was composed by Chip Jenkins for Elias Arts.

The one-minute commercial featured black-and-white footage of 17 iconic 20th century personalities. In order of appearance they were: Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon (with Yoko Ono), 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 opening her closed eyes, as if making a wish. The final clip is taken from the All Around The World version of the "Sweet Lullaby" music video, directed by Tarsem Singh; the young girl is Shaan Sahota, Singh's niece.

The thirty-second commercial was a shorter version of the previous one, using 11 of the 17 personalities, but closed with Jerry Seinfeld, instead of the young girl. In order of appearance: Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, Martha Graham, Muhammad Ali, Alfred Hitchcock, Mahatma Gandhi, Jim Henson, Maria Callas, Pablo Picasso, followed by Jerry Seinfeld. This version aired only once, during the season finale of Seinfeld.

Another early example of the "Think Different" ads was on February 4, 1998, months before taking the colors out of the logo, where a commercial aired with a snail carrying an Intel Pentium II chip on its back moving slowly, as the Power Macintosh G3 claims that it is twice as fast as Intel's Pentium II Processor.

Concept, philosophy, background

Apple's CEO Steve Jobs ordered the creation of a campaign that reflected the philosophy he thought had to be reinforced within the company he once co-founded, but which was struggling at the time he came back:

Steve Jobs in interview for PBS' 'One Last Thing' documentary, 1994

“

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

”

Print advertisements

Print advertisements from the campaign were published in many mainstream magazines such as Newsweek and Time. Their style was predominantly traditional, prominently featuring the company's computers or consumer electronics along with the slogan.

There was also another series of print ads which were more focused on brand image than specific products. Those featured a portrait of one historic figure, with a small Apple logo and the words "Think Different" in one corner, with no reference to the company's products. The familiar faces on display included Jim Henson, Richard Feynman, Maria Callas, Miles Davis, Martha Graham, Ansel Adams, Cesar Chavez, Joan Baez, and others.

Promotional posters

Promotional posters from the campaign were produced in small numbers in 24 x 36 inch sizes. They featured the portrait of one historic figure, with a small Apple logo and the words "Think Different" in one corner. The posters were produced between 1997 and 1998.

There were at least 29 different Think Different posters created. The sets were as follows^{[citation needed]}:

Set 1

• Amelia Earhart
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Pablo Picasso
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Thomas Edison

Set 2

• Maria Callas
• Martha Graham
• Joan Baez
• Ted Turner
• 14th Dalai Lama (never officially released due to licensing issues and the politically sensitive nature)

Set 3

• Jim Henson
• Miles Davis
• Ansel Adams
• Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz
• Bob Dylan (Never officially released due to licensing issues)

Set 4

• Frank Sinatra
• Richard Feynman
• Jackie Robinson
• Cesar Chavez

Set 5 (The Directors set, never officially released)

• Charlie Chaplin
• Francis Ford Coppola
• Orson Welles
• Frank Capra
• John Huston

In addition, around the year 2000, Apple produced the ten, 11x17 poster set often referred to as "The Educators Set", which was distributed through their Education Channels. Apple sent out boxes (the cover of which is a copy of the 'Crazy Ones' original TD poster) that each contained 3 packs (sealed in plastic) of 10 small/miniature Think Different posters.

Educator Set

• Albert Einstein
• Amelia Earhart
• Miles Davis
• Jim Henson
• Jane Goodall
• Mahatma Gandhi
• John Lennon & Yoko Ono
• Cesar Chavez
• James Watson
• Pablo Picasso

During a special event held on October 14, 1998 at the Flint Center in Cupertino California, a limited edition 11" x 14" softbound book was given to employees and affiliates of Apple Computer, Inc. to commemorate the first year of the ad campaign. The 50 page book contained a foreword by Steve Jobs, the text of the original Think Different ad, and illustrations of many of the posters used in the campaign along with narratives describing each person.

Text

The original long version appeared on posters made by Apple.

The Crazy Ones

Original

“

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 invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some 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.

”

Full version

“

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. 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. - Apple Inc.

”

Short version

“

Here’s to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. 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.

”

Reception and influence

Upon release, the "Think Different" Campaign proved to be an enormous success for Apple and TBWA\Chiat\Day. Critically acclaimed, the spot would garner numerous awards and accolades, including the 1998 Emmy Award for Best Commercial and the 2000 Grand Effie Award for most effective campaign in America. Even the American rap group, the Wu Tang Clan named one of their albums "Think Different" and the cover shows the sign of the group colored like the apple logo.

In retrospect, the new ad campaign marked the beginning of Apple's re-emergence as a marketing powerhouse. In the years leading up to the ad Apple had lost market share to the Wintel ecosystem which offered lower prices, more software choices, and higher-performance CPUs. Worse for Apple's reputation was the high-profile failure of the Apple Newton, a billion-dollar project that proved to be a technical and commercial dud. The success of the "Think Different" campaign, along with the return of Steve Jobs, bolstered the Apple brand and reestablished the "counter-culture" aura of its earlier days, setting the stage for the immensely successful iMac personal computer and later the Mac OS X operating system.

Grammatical correctness

Many have noted that the clause "Think different" is not grammatically correct. Since "different" is considered a modifier, it has to be conjugated as an adverb, making "think differently" the accurate phrase.

However, according to Jobs's official biography, this was because "Jobs insisted that he wanted 'different' to be used as a noun, as in 'think victory' or 'think beauty.'" Also, Jobs wanted to make it sound colloquial, like the phrase "think big."

Revivals

Product packaging

Since late 2009, the box packaging specification sheet for iMac computers has included the following footnote:

Macintosh     Think different.

In previous Macintosh packaging, Apple's website URL was printed below the specifications list.

The apparent explanation for this inconspicuous usage is that Apple wished to maintain its trademark registrations on both terms – in most jurisdictions, a company must show continued use of a trademark on its products in order to maintain registration, but neither trademark is widely used in the company's current marketing. (With regards to "Macintosh", Apple's computers are now usually marketed as simply "Mac".) Indeed, this packaging was used as the required specimen of use when Apple filed to re-register "Think Different" as a U.S. trademark in 2009.

Mac OS X

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

Truncated versions of the "Crazy Ones" text have been reused in Mac OS X on the high-resolution icon for TextEdit introduced in Leopard, on the "All My Files" Finder icon introduced in Lion, and on the new Color LCD Display preferences menu introduced for MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

Apple.com

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

• In 2001, when George Harrison died
• In 2002, when Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize
• In 2003, when Gregory Hines died
• In 2005, when Rosa Parks died
• In 2007, when Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize
• In 2011, when Steve Jobs died

Parodies

The Simpsons episode "Mypods and Boomsticks" pokes fun at the slogan, writing it "Think Differently", because the slogan itself is not entirely grammatically correct.

For Steam's release on Mac OS X, Valve has released a Left 4 Dead–themed advertisement featuring Francis, whose in-game spoken lines involve him hating various things. The given slogan is "I hate different." Subsequently, for Team Fortress 2's release on Mac, a trailer was released which concludes with "Think bullets".

There is a parody on the internet with the original audio track and the video track replaced with the images of North Korean military.

See also

• 1984 Super Bowl ad
• The organization of the artist
• Steve Jobs
• Think (IBM)

External links

• Apple: Think Different text at the Internet Archive
• Detailed information at The Inspiration Room Daily
• Variety article
• Steve Jobs narrated version (video)