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Behind the Scenes of Apple's 'Think Different' Campaign

Russell L said:
I remember at the time that the grammar police were all over this, saying it should be "think differently", not realizing that Steve meant "think of something different" as opposed to "think in a different manner".
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it wasn't steve - it was the agency - give credit to were credit is earned.
 
The so called biography is actually fiction then? Even to the very end, you're marketing yourself...
 
convergent said:
Another thing to think about with this... no pun intended... is that IBM's motto for many years has been "Think", and Apple in that timeframe was battling with the IBM PC (and compatibles). Just my opinion, but I believe that part of the reason for "Think Different" was to play off IBM's "Think" motto. Jobs was a brilliant guy.
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who was the brilliant guy? re-read article dude.

great point about the IBM connection through. I had forgotten about that :)
 
I wonder if when Steve was a child that someone said they "hated" one of his ideas or something he made. I wonder where that came about. It seems a little spiteful.
 
zoozx said:
Steve gets and takes credit for A LOT of stuff he had little to do with or initially had to be talked into accepting.
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And actually after reading so many statements of Steve he maybe should've put some thought into "Anger management"-seminars.

Gee - I wonder how many gastric ulcers he had before the whole cancer thing struck. Anything on that in the biography?

:cool:
 
Don't get me started on how the SJ bio is wrong. This may be a good read about Steve, but don't take it as gospel.
 
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lol, Jobs. What a maniac! Just sleep on it buddy! But he was one of the crazy ones.

Also, one has to imagine what tremendous pressure he was under. Not only trying to save a once great tech icon from near-certain dissolution, but his own baby. I probably would have been flipping out over everything too.
 
But when it was presented to Jobs in what turned out to eventually be nearly its final form, Jobs initially hated it.
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"Nearly" could possible be the key there. Just today I was talking about how seemingly small correction can change the whole thing.

How about "nearly" the same iPhone, just with the physical keyboard? Or "nearly" the same iPhone without multitouch?

Maybe their first presentation was read in a fun manner. Maybe it was the same, just with the different last phrase: "They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as crazy, we see genius. Buy Apple Macintosh.". That would make "nearly" the same ad right into an "advertising agency ****".
 
But what did Steve mean?

When he called something "****," I'm pretty sure a large part of the time he was just saying it for its effects on creatives. He wanted a strong defense. If he didn't see it, he got the feeling he was right.

And sometimes he was saying stuff like that to just be mean.
 
swagi said:
...
Gee - I wonder how many gastric ulcers he had before the whole cancer thing struck. Anything on that in the biography?

:cool:
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Actually something was mentioned about it in the bio.

Basically, SJ said it was around this that was hardest (workload) time in his life, because he was playing the role of CEO for two companies (Pixar & Apple) and just started a family.

And while at Apple, he had to be the axe for most of the projects and get rid of staff, and cleanup (including replacing the entire Board) because no one else would ... SJ said that it he 'believed' that this is when the health problems started.

.
 
Think Different Sheet Music

I think the music is pretty iconic too and I read somewhere that Steve Jobs personally oversaw the music choice as well. I decided to transcribe it. I think it sounds fairly accurate, but maybe it needs some tweaking. This is the first time I've posted it online. If there are any pianists out there, let me know what you think. :)

Think different 001.jpg
 
They say success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan.

That makes it so odd that people are claiming "credit" for Think Different, because the campaign was a failure. At least in any material sense. Just a look at Apple share of market from before the campaign up to 2 years after it ended, they were in steady decline. Market share didn't start to turn around until 5 years after Think Different debuted. Not a success by any commercial measure.

And the stories I've heard from the Chiat/Day crew were substantially different from this blog. Several *do* credit Steve with ownership. Maybe the blogger was just Thinking Different.
 
Russell L said:
I remember at the time that the grammar police were all over this, saying it should be "think differently", not realizing that Steve meant "think of something different" as opposed to "think in a different manner".
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Steve? Rob, you mean? And yes, grammar police obviously had their heads up their asses. And, to tell people to think differently, now that would make for a disaster of a commercial. Different on the other hand "just works".
 
maflynn said:
the "iMac" is another example where he hated the name and had to be convinced
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True, Jobs wanted "MacMan", probably a takeoff from the Sony Walkman.

Rocko1 said:
It's crap, this is crap, you are crap is just the way Steve managed. It ended up in most cases making whatever he was talking about 20-50% better. It didn't always mean he actually hated it.
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Jobs himself was almost completely ignorant about technical and business issues. He needed a quick way to figure out who in his organization to believe, so he could then make decisions:

His employees have said that a common Jobs ploy was to use derogatory statements to try to find who was willing to defend their ideas. The ones who fought back the most, were people he figured might have something he should pay attention to, even if he didn't understand what they were talking about.

(Bill Gates also confronted people, but in a more intelligent manner, because at least he knew what he was talking about. He was infamous for asking for all the documentation on a project, reading it entirely overnight, then grilling the manager or programmers the next day to see if they could technically defend their decisions.)
 
Consultant said:
Steve Jobs said the best ideas win at Apple, this is another great example.
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Or rather, the ideas Steve Jobs (eventually) came to find to be best. Thankfully, especially for Apple, he had a nack of getting it right more often than not.
 
zoozx said:
Steve gets and takes credit for A LOT of stuff he had little to do with or initially had to be talked into accepting.
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Well, to paraphrase Gates, theres more than one way to look at it. Had he not been so hard to push two things might have happened a) people would've thought less before proposing (they had to get things right), and b) to much crap would've passed through the system. But yes, we do give Jobs way more credit than he deserves.
 
gobears81 said:
I think the music is pretty iconic too and I read somewhere that Steve Jobs personally oversaw the music choice as well. I decided to transcribe it. I think it sounds fairly accurate, but maybe it needs some tweaking. This is the first time I've posted it online. If there are any pianists out there, let me know what you think. :)

View attachment 316142
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I'll get my sister to try it out sometime... She plays piano pretty well :)
 
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