Apple is always a serious approach to the question of advertising their products. I do not recall any major failures. Of course there were videos that were forgotten almost immediately, but there were also those campaigns that literally made history. Already at the mere mention of the word Apple come to mind thoughts about Think different (think otherwise), in memory of the famous movie there in 1984, there is a smile at the recollection of the series «Get a Mac».
It is interesting that over time Apple advertising style has changed dramatically. In the '70s and' 80s boasted the technical characteristics: advertising communicated not only to the processor and data memory, but even on the IEEE bus, the supported programming languages and things like that, except that the interest engineers. To some extent, this reflects the advertising nature of the young founders of the company - Jobs and Wozniak, who themselves came up and collected the first machines.
Later, of course, it became clear that ordinary people are not interested in cycles, bits, bytes, and what can be done. This interest began to reflect advertising. In the announcement of the new Apple computer it was reported that he, for example, "can sing like Caruso, talk like Barrymore, calculated as Einstein. He can draw as Kandinsky and play like Paderewski. "
Throughout its history, the company did not hesitate to turn up the leaders. When the "sway» IBM, Apple has launched a luxury advertising in 1984, where Big Blue has been presented in the form of Big Brother. Apple opposed him. They brought to consumers a simple message: by Apple, you choose freedom and innovation.
Much more battered Microsoft from Apple. "Advertising" confrontation began with zadiristovogo clinging to the words. When the MS has launched a campaign with the slogan "Where do you want to go today?» (Where do you want to go today?), Apple said advertisement "Good question, Microsoft, but what about tomorrow?". In this ad Apple called his technique the future of computing. Macy's presented as more efficient and convenient to operate. Apple then just say that Windows 95 copes with the contemporary challenges, but the OS development is moving in the wrong direction.
"Bullying" Microsoft continued in the series Get a Mac. For over fifty Apple series methodically, step by step telling Mac about the pros and cons of Windows. I am doing it in an interesting, fun way. References to Get a Mac, parody can be found on the Internet and television series.
Another victim - Intel. Apple some time this company called processors slow. The anti-advertising them at all dragged on themselves snail. The message was this: "Some people believe Pentium II the fastest processor in the world. This is not quite true. The chip inside the Power Macintosh G3 is twice as fast. Think different. "
think different
The story about the campaign Think Different deserves a separate article. In the mid-'90s Apple cases were in poor condition. Idiots-shareholders, expelling Jobs, have put the company on the brink of bankruptcy. Competitors maliciously advised "close up shop" to sell the property and distribute the money to shareholders.
To understand the depth of the crisis, which was Apple's, suffice it to say that at that time considered the possibility of licensing Windows NT, Sun Solaris or BeOS for installation on Mac.
Fortunately, in the final analysis, Apple bought a company named NeXT, Jobs founded. Steve's return to Apple was a triumph.
Jobs started with the fact that sharply reduced product range. Among the first steps was the change in marketing policy. The company turned to a number of advertising agencies with a request to come up with a new slogan.
winner became agency Chiat / Day. Its creative director Lee Clow Jobs spoke to a presentation, during which he proposed to use the slogan "Think Different." It is not known whether there was in this kind of reference to the motto of IBM (THINK), but a new slogan went like Jobs.
Lee Clow - the author of the slogan "Think different." Photo © AdAge
Clow initial plan included the release of a series of rollers, which have been demonstrated, as the movie studio figures from Dreamworks are working for their Macs.
We must pay tribute to Steve Jobs - he understood the essence of the concept of "Think Different" is deeper than its author. Jobs decided to show in advertising prominent thinkers, entrepreneurs, the world-famous stars. In the video, nothing at all was said about Poppy. Video showed Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Richard Branson, John Lennon Yoko Ono, Thomas Edison, Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Gandhi, Picasso and et al.
Richard Dreyfuss, the youngest Oscar winner, read out the text (translation AdMe):
For madmen. For the black sheep. Rebels. Troublemakers. They are round pegs in the square holes. They look at the world differently, and do not respect the common. You can quote them or argue with them, they can praise or blame. The only thing that can not be - do not ignore them. Because they change the way we look at things and push the human race forward. And where one sees the madness, we see genius. Because it is those who have enough madness to think that they can change the world, and there are those who change it. Think differently.
Once the concept of advertising company has been approved, Jobs gave a total of 17 days for its implementation. During this time I had to make two commercials for TV, to come up with the design of billboards, advertisements in the press to prepare. But the most difficult - is to get permission from the celebrities and their families to use the image in advertising.
Original: www3.baylor.edu/~Jeff_Compton/images/thinkdifferent.jpg
If Jobs did not have that time at Apple, the procedure for obtaining permission to spread out over many months. But some stars have been very familiar with Steve. In addition, even if Jobs was a legend, a cult figure. Therefore, obtaining the consent did not take long. All of these celebrities in advertising and their relatives for the use of the image did not get a dime. Instead, Apple has listed donations to their chosen charities.
Advertisement "Think differently" was needed not only in order to convince consumers to buy Apple products, but also to motivate employees. More about this book says Steven Levy's The perfect thing: how the iPod shuffles commerce, culture, and coolness ( «Flawless thing as an iPod mixed commerce, culture and the slope"). Jobs in an interview with the author of the book said a very interesting thing. According to him, the easiest way to convey their values to people that do not know, saying, Who for you is a hero, a role model. The campaign "Think different» Apple says it is about their heroes.
Think Different was one of the last century, the most brilliant ad campaigns. As rightly pointed Carmine Gallo in his book "Rules for Jobs", it shows "a fundamental difference between radical innovators and mediocre imitators: first believe in the dreams of its customers and their ability to change the world; last see their customers a dollar sign - and nothing else. "
To be continued…