Think Different ("The Crazy Ones")
Apple1997
Think Different ("The Crazy Ones") is a 1997 60-second television commercial, print and outdoor campaign for Apple, created by TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles.
The line
Here's to the crazy ones... Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
Why it works
A manifesto in place of a product. With Apple ninety days from irrelevance and nothing new to sell, the returning Steve Jobs approved a campaign that showed no computers at all: black-and-white footage of Einstein, Dylan, Picasso, King and other "crazy ones," over a prose poem saluting the misfits who change the world. Art director Craig Tanimoto's two-word line and Rob Siltanen's script — which Jobs initially called "shit" before championing it — first aired September 28, 1997 and won the 1998 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. It is studied as the canonical brand-turnaround ad: values first, products later, with the audience flattered into the brand's worldview. The iMac arrived a year later into a meaning the campaign had already built.
Techniques
- Transfer Black-and-white footage of Einstein, Dylan, Picasso and King lends the brand the aura of history's rebels and geniuses, with no computer shown.
- Glittering generalities A prose poem saluting misfits who change the world sells an ideal of thinking differently while promising nothing specific about any product.
Sources · 3
Updated
