It's Apple returning to the Big Why. It worked. Apple at the time was in deep trouble having been the "other PC" for too long. They moved away from their "wh

It's Apple returning to the Big Why. It worked. Apple at the time was in deep trouble having been the "other PC" for too long. They moved away from their "why" to a "what" and they had copied the "what" of every windows PC at the time to abysmal failure. This speech could have been part of a film "How Apple got its Groove Back". The iPod ads have nothing to do with this "Think Different" campaign. The iPod ads maintained the "why" as in "Why do we produce these things?" Answer: For fun! For expression! For freeing you from the shackles of a 60 minute CD. For choice. They didn't go on about what the iPod was (and the iRiver H100 series at the time was a far better machine and the one I chose). They instead went for why it was. That resonated with their audience. They then took that theme and ran with it with every product since. And yet, just being fun and frivolous doesn't work for everything. Take a look at the iPhone ads; all about function through the app store... and yet withthat function they declare "Fun!". Take a look at the words they use; magical this and magical that. Meanwhile their competition tries to tout function this and function that... and price. Even HP now recognizes what Apple did right and they tried to rip it off with designer notebooks. Too bad that while they have the product the ads still suck (does HP advertise?) Apple has nailed down what works in marketing for now. They control the mobile space. They control the music space. They have far greater impact on web development than their products have reach. If Adobe/Microsoft/Google ever "get it", watch out. But maybe that is Steve Jobs greatest asset. He knows that they don't "get it".