Think Different

‘I can relate to your struggle 

I overstand the hustle 

But it's the music that moves.’

As festival season comes back around Apple have produced a new advert for the mac computer serving as an ode to the artists whose songs have been featured by the company in previous years. After recently announcing the termination of iTunes it stands to reason that the company must once again re-establish their long-standing coalition with the music scene. 

There is a logic to this: Apple, which was initially founded by Steve, both Jobs and Wozniak, in 1976, has come to be known for possessing the technology best suited to music streaming. This development is a recent one, however, and can predominantly be considered a 21st-century advancement. That’s right, this company brought us not only iTunes but the iPod, airpods and the homepod among several other devices which combine both sound and visuals. Music is integral to the brand’s identity but this wasn’t always the case…

In 1981 after several years of legal battle with the Beatles’ own company of the same name, it was agreed that Apple computer would steer clear of any involvement with the music sector, a promise which they did not successfully follow through on. By the end of the 1980s Apple had already been sued for their involvement in music creation, in 2003 the invention of iTunes provoked yet another disagreement and so it went on until 2007 when an arrangement based on the use of trademarks settled the dispute. It took another three years for the marked absence of the fab four on our playlists to be rectified and the band were eventually made downloadable on iTunes at the culmination of the last decade.   

There’s a special something about Apple ads that make them stand out. The simplicity on which the company prides itself, the allure of a catchy slogan, of course, but what else? Jobs, who allegedly placed marketing as the main priority, second only to technological innovation can himself, take partial credit for many of the breakthrough publicity schemes. To cite just one of the most judicious marketing ploys, ‘Why 1984 won’t be like 1984,’ was a tag-line that Jobs enthusiastically gave the go-ahead. The Macintosh computer’s debut in the mid-eighties featured twice in the commercial break during the Super Bowl. Buying advertising for this time slot was expensive and indicated that Apple was serious in its aims of reaching a wider audience. Ridley Scott, director of dystopian sci-fi drama ‘Blade Runner’ made the commercial in the same vein as the rest of his work, with a sympathetic heroine intent on single-handedly fighting the ‘forces of evil’ so to speak.    

‘Think Different,’ was yet another phrase conjured by team Apple. This cleverly aspirational quote of the consumer-led nineties played homage to many wonderful icons in an ad campaign featuring historical figures who Jobs himself, held personal admiration for. Among those included were Einstein, Gandhi, Jim Henson, Martha Graham, Martin Luther King jr, John F. Kennedy and John Lennon, to name just a few. What you might notice about these plucky individuals is the maverick element of their personalities, which Jobs was keen to promote and harness as a quality his own target base could relate to. The masterful way in which ‘Think Different’ worked to accumulate loyal cult followers and simultaneously set them apart from their rivals took true genius. Rarely has marketing been quite so slick. Purportedly the slogan was dreamed up in response to IBM, (Apple’s main adversary at the time) and their own catchphrase- ‘think’. IBM, often playing the part of a common adversary, was regularly victim to Apple’s sly us-versus-them propaganda. This was indeed clear to see in most of their well-known promotional material (get a mac) with the only noticeable change over time becoming the casting of the villain, as Microsoft overtook IBM as the main competitor.       

Often Apple’s advertising focuses less on the item itself but instead on the feeling one would acquire as a result of owning it. The odd pricing is never the central point of focus, however, the cost is undoubtedly part and parcel in what the brand wishes to convey about the superior quality of their designs. There is a sense of achievement, an appealing level of elitism in owning an Apple product that the company has so successfully cultivated through their marketing campaigns. It’s fair to say that more so than any other computing giant, Apple is a brand with an ideology, a brand which promotes the same sense of ingeniousness and inspiration on which it was founded. ‘Think Different’ is not just a suggestion but an explanation as to how Steve Jobs and his team succeeded in creating such a large empire, in the end dominating the field of mobile technology.      

Sources-

Graakjaer, Nikolai, Analyzing Music in Advertising: Television Commercials and Consumer Choice, (New York: Routledge, 2015)

Hamm, Steve, Maney, Kevin, O’Brien, Jeffrey, Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company, (Pearson Education, 2011) 

Schneiders, Sascha, Apple's Secret Of Success - Traditional Marketing Vs. Cult Marketing, (Hamburg: Diplomica Verlag, 2011)

Smith, Daniel, How to Think Like Steve Jobs, (London: Michael O’Mara Books Ltd., 2013)

with credit to unsplash for the use of the image