Think(ing) Different.
I have a long history with computers. I got a Sinclair Z81 for my birthday one year and the 16K ram pack for my birthday the next. I did maths and computer science at college where we learned Pascal on Vax mini computers. My history with computers became intertwined with my history as a planner when in 1992, I started working on my first account: AST Research, a now defunct PC manufacturer and shortly afterwards Sun Microsystems, a now defunct workstation/server manufacturer.
In 1996,I started working on Microsoft and the next year Steve Jobs returned to Apple. By then, Apple had ceased to be relevant – our sights were set on companies like Netscape, Sun and Oracle. Along with most others I assumed that it would be too little, too late. And when the “Think Different” advertising launched, my assumption was confirmed.
I remember asking my colleagues, “How can an ad about what you are, a thing that everyone already knows, change what you think about a company?”
In fact, I don’t think it did. It was everything that came after that changed how we think about that ad.
And for me, it was everything that came after that changed how I think about computers, about technology, about advertising and about marketing.
Goodbye Steve.