Steve Jobs unveils Apple’s Think Different campaign (1997)

Apple’s widely successful creative platform, developed by Chia/Day, ran until 2002. It produced a number of well-known TV commercials, including the famous “Crazy Ones” featuring the likes of Albert Einstein & Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In this internal announcement, Steve Jobs explains the rationale behind the campaign. It’s about focusing on Apple’s values as a brand, or as he puts it in the brief to Chia/Day: “where do we fit in the world”?

Drawing marketing lessons from Nike, Jobs explains that great brands aren’t about packshots or showing their products as much as they are about standing for something bigger than their products. 

That’s what Simon Synek would later boil down to “the why”: “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”.