5 ms·

Steve Jobs on Apple's brand strategy in 1997

110 points by aditya 16y ago

calbear81 16y ago
As a marketer, seeing this reminds me to stay grounded and ignore the hype and focus on the most important thing: conveying to the world who we are and what we stand for.
endlessvoid94 16y ago
If you didn't know who this commercial was about before seeing it, you wouldn't know until the very end. The Apple logo is only on screen for maybe 1 second, and yet it still plants the company firmly in your memory. It's great.
nbashaw 16y ago
I don't see many startups who display evidence of holding the belief that "marketing is about values". There's a lot of focus on making something useful, but not telling a story that will resonate with a human being's heart. I wonder why this is...
- melvinram 16y ago
  I suspect it's because the enviroment and consumers are different. People are no longer okay with you saying you think different. They need you to prove it. They need you to show it. With Apple, a lot of their advertising focuses on what's different about them but they tell that narrative in a way that conveys that they came to this conclusion (aka the product being sold) by thinking about the problem in a way that hadn't been thought about before. They are still narrative but they have to make it believable in a different way. A lot of others are doing the same but usually not doing as good a job on the latter, but they still focus on proving what it is they value, by the decisions they make in building the product.
- gbelote 16y ago
  The challenges are different. Most startups struggle to get awareness. A very abstract tag line (e.g. "Do it the fun way") doesn't really help with that problem. Your customers are different too -- a "mainstream" audience is more moved by what feels good than early adopters (who, generally speaking, are trying to satisfy a "pain point"). Apple in 1997 was very well known. They were competing with PCs in a technical way (e.g. faster computers), and it wasn't working very well. Their shift in marketing was to build a stronger Apple brand and make more of an emotional pitch. It turned out to be a more powerful differentiator and was longer-lasting than focusing on the benefits of a particular product.
nathanlrivera 16y ago
There is no denying Steve Jobs is a brilliant leader who can inspire people.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
_tef 16y ago
although, if you compare then and now - the adverts don't follow that narrative at all. it looks like apple started off by copying what nike were doing - aspirational branding - attaching it to celebrities to hope it carries over to the brand. it worked ok now it seems like their core idea is more of 'we make elegant devices that will change your world' - focusing much more on the design and the use of the products, while still avoiding much of the technical specs and benchmarks
- ecuzzillo 16y ago
  The point was that at that time the brand was in need of rejuvenation, as it had been neglected. Nowadays, I think everybody would agree that the brand is quite healthy, so the problem is to remind people that there are new shiny things under this shiny brand, which they should buy right now.
  - ugh 16y ago
    Apple simply didn’t have any shiny or great products in 1997. They were a mess. I think that one reason the first iMacs were so colorful – so unlike every other later Apple product (except the smaller iPods) – is not that Jony Ive had a completely different taste back then, I think they were so colorful to make a big splash, to be visibly different, to save the company. Those were computers you could show off in ads (while still not talking about specs and speeds). Here is an ad from that era: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT4xftxMoMg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT4xftxMoMg
- laujen 16y ago
  Elegant devices, seamless integration, simplicity -- what Apple's ads are all about today -- are brand advertising. That is the brand's promise and differentiation wrapped up in one tidy package.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- erikpukinskis 16y ago
  I think a big part of this is that Apple's products are in brand new/relatively unknown categories, and people are totally unfamiliar with what the dang thing is. By the time the iMac came out, everyone knew what a computer was. You didn't need to explain it, you needed to sell it. When the iPhone came out, no one except Treo nerds really knew what the fuck a smartphone was. So their iPhone ads were mostly focused on educating the public about what this crazy new thing can do. Same with the iPad. If you look at the old iPod ads, you see them applying both strategies at different times. The very first iPod ad they did (http://youtu.be/nWqj6OQQOHA http://youtu.be/nWqj6OQQOHA) showed you exactly how the thing worked, from hardware to software. It basically walked you through a use case. Later ads (http://youtu.be/NbYT7x2ZKmk http://youtu.be/NbYT7x2ZKmk) when everyone knew what an iPod was, were much more aspirational. My money says that in a few years, the iPad ads will head in that direction too. But there's a lot of education they still have to do.
solutionyogi 16y ago
It's impossible to not become a Steve Jobs fanboy. Look at this guy. In shorts, discussing marketing for his company in a way which an average person can understand. No bullshit. No paradigm shifting. No synergies. No Dilbert Speak.
- famousactress 16y ago
  Okay, so the shorts pulled you out of it too? Everytime the video panned out I was like "Whoa, where are his pants!?"... then back to being mesmerized. Amazing talk.
- hristov 16y ago
  I have managed it.
- pinko 16y ago
  I'd love to see a similar modern interview with him to compare and contrast... anyone know of one?
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  Down boy, down.
- _frog 16y ago
  This is part of why I think Steve Jobs is such a great spokesman for Apple as a company. He believes every word coming out of his mouth and that enthusiasm tends to be infectious. Look at any presentations he's given, the iPad 2 launch comes to mind. After each of the software demos he'd come back on stage with this look of wonder on his face and it really affects the audience on a deep emotional level.
- ffffruit 16y ago
  Another talk I find highly inspirational is his 2005 Stanford university commencement address. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
reso 16y ago
Honestly, I don't have much respect for "Lifestyle" advertising. Just because you can use pictures of Einstein, Ghandi, Earhart, and Russel on the screen before your logo, doesn't mean you know shit about making a product. It feels deceitful, and the fact that it works so well disturbs me.
- solutionyogi 16y ago
  Talk about missing the point. For Apple, 'Think Different' is not about marketing or PR speak. It's their way of life. They actually believe in it. Their products, iPod/iPhone/iPad, is a living proof of their philosophy. Apple with their products have literally reinvented the category. iPhone and iPad both have completed redefined smartphone and table category respectively. The beauty is that their 'Think Different' Ad is also very different from the usual ads you see.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- melvinram 16y ago
  In the ad, they are not selling you a product. They are telling you what they believe. It would only be deceitful if what they told you they believed didn't match up with their actions. Many companies make promises that don't match up with their realities and in America, we're all a lot more skeptical of "marketing speak" for this very reason. However, when what you promise is congruent with what you deliver, it's a magical thing.
sthatipamala 16y ago
Sadly, Apple has transitioned from honoring the developers who "Think Different" and build up the Apple platform, to nickel-and-diming them
- celoyd 16y ago
  Apple has never treated third-party developers well in that sense. (There are exceptions, but they are exceptions.) Apple’s strategy has always been to first bring in customers who are willing to pay for high quality, and then let developers fend for themselves in that environment. This was true at the time of these ads and it’s true now. If you’re a developer, Apple isn’t going to say nice things about you, or make it particularly easy to get your app in the App Store, or give you everything for free. It’s going to give you access to a good platform with good users. Some developers seem to think this is insulting and others seem relieved.
6ren 16y ago
Who's the guy on the word "vilify" (just after Ali)? Also, what's the "Got milk?" campaign? I've often heard references to it, but I don't think it aired over here. EDIT internet to the rescue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSsswr6z9Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSsswr6z9Y
- cydonian_monk 16y ago
  The vilified "crazy one" is Ted Turner. He was used in one of the "Think Different" print ads as well.
steveb 16y ago
1997 was the year that Michael Dell gave the advice that Apple should close up shop and return the money to the shareholders. As a company and brand, Apple was in bad shape: Windows 95 was a huge success and Windows NT was growing in the enterprise while NeXT had faltered. Jobs really didn't have a lot in the product pipeline (the first iMac didn't come out until a year later), so the campaign needed to make employees and customers believe again in Apple. Four years from this speech the iPod was released and OSX started to show up on desktops. It took eight years before Apple went to Intel processors. And it took ten years of incremental improvement, discipline, product focus, and risk-taking before we got to the iPhone.
richcollins 16y ago
Interesting that the other examples he used were about differentiating through branding rather than the product. Apple succeeds because its product is better than the competition. I doubt many people use Apple products because they identify with the catchphrase about "changing the world for the better". They use apple products because they can do what they want to do better.
- keiferski 16y ago
  That may be true, but I think his point about "not focusing on the technical aspects of why Apple was better" is really important.
  - richcollins 16y ago
    Right, you have to communicate the reasons that your product is better in a way that potential customers will understand. Although if you truly do something way better, your customer's will do that for you.
annon 16y ago
It's crazy to watch these videos and know that it was only 14 years ago. Apple has grown so much in a small amount of time, and steve has aged a lot getting them there.
StudyAnimal 16y ago
I like this one from when he was at NeXT. No so much about marketing, but more about product strategy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY Of course he was wrong. The workstation market did not develop a professional workstation segment, Macs and PCs just got powerful enough to make workstations irrelevant.
- _frog 16y ago
  Not as relevant but I saw this video a while back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A&feature=relat... It's interesting to see a young Steve Jobs perfecting his presentation style.
bvi 16y ago
On an unrelated note - has Jobs' voice itself changed at some point? It seems a lot more...high pitched and "airy" now than it was back then.
- scdc 16y ago
  perhaps due to weight loss?
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    or maybe it's a natural change from aging.
scdc 16y ago
I have seen that 'Crazy Ones' commercial* dozens of times, still gives me goosebumps. Such good work. How much of this quality is Chiat/Day and/or the specific team at Chiat Day? Or is it mostly Jobs' vision for the ad that the agency just executes? *http://vimeo.com/7640346 http://vimeo.com/7640346
- solutionyogi 16y ago
  The Crazy Ones commercial is my all time favorite commercial. Unbelievably well done.

110 points by aditya 16y ago

As a marketer, seeing this reminds me to stay grounded and ignore the hype and focus on the most important thing: conveying to the world who we are and what we stand for.

endlessvoid94 16y ago

If you didn't know who this commercial was about before seeing it, you wouldn't know until the very end. The Apple logo is only on screen for maybe 1 second, and yet it still plants the company firmly in your memory. It's great.

nbashaw 16y ago

I don't see many startups who display evidence of holding the belief that "marketing is about values". There's a lot of focus on making something useful, but not telling a story that will resonate with a human being's heart. I wonder why this is...

melvinram 16y ago
I suspect it's because the enviroment and consumers are different. People are no longer okay with you saying you think different. They need you to prove it. They need you to show it. With Apple, a lot of their advertising focuses on what's different about them but they tell that narrative in a way that conveys that they came to this conclusion (aka the product being sold) by thinking about the problem in a way that hadn't been thought about before. They are still narrative but they have to make it believable in a different way. A lot of others are doing the same but usually not doing as good a job on the latter, but they still focus on proving what it is they value, by the decisions they make in building the product.
gbelote 16y ago
The challenges are different. Most startups struggle to get awareness. A very abstract tag line (e.g. "Do it the fun way") doesn't really help with that problem. Your customers are different too -- a "mainstream" audience is more moved by what feels good than early adopters (who, generally speaking, are trying to satisfy a "pain point"). Apple in 1997 was very well known. They were competing with PCs in a technical way (e.g. faster computers), and it wasn't working very well. Their shift in marketing was to build a stronger Apple brand and make more of an emotional pitch. It turned out to be a more powerful differentiator and was longer-lasting than focusing on the benefits of a particular product.

nathanlrivera 16y ago

There is no denying Steve Jobs is a brilliant leader who can inspire people.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

_tef 16y ago

although, if you compare then and now - the adverts don't follow that narrative at all. it looks like apple started off by copying what nike were doing - aspirational branding - attaching it to celebrities to hope it carries over to the brand. it worked ok now it seems like their core idea is more of 'we make elegant devices that will change your world' - focusing much more on the design and the use of the products, while still avoiding much of the technical specs and benchmarks

ecuzzillo 16y ago
The point was that at that time the brand was in need of rejuvenation, as it had been neglected. Nowadays, I think everybody would agree that the brand is quite healthy, so the problem is to remind people that there are new shiny things under this shiny brand, which they should buy right now.
- ugh 16y ago
  Apple simply didn’t have any shiny or great products in 1997. They were a mess. I think that one reason the first iMacs were so colorful – so unlike every other later Apple product (except the smaller iPods) – is not that Jony Ive had a completely different taste back then, I think they were so colorful to make a big splash, to be visibly different, to save the company. Those were computers you could show off in ads (while still not talking about specs and speeds). Here is an ad from that era: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT4xftxMoMg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT4xftxMoMg
laujen 16y ago
Elegant devices, seamless integration, simplicity -- what Apple's ads are all about today -- are brand advertising. That is the brand's promise and differentiation wrapped up in one tidy package.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
erikpukinskis 16y ago
I think a big part of this is that Apple's products are in brand new/relatively unknown categories, and people are totally unfamiliar with what the dang thing is. By the time the iMac came out, everyone knew what a computer was. You didn't need to explain it, you needed to sell it. When the iPhone came out, no one except Treo nerds really knew what the fuck a smartphone was. So their iPhone ads were mostly focused on educating the public about what this crazy new thing can do. Same with the iPad. If you look at the old iPod ads, you see them applying both strategies at different times. The very first iPod ad they did (http://youtu.be/nWqj6OQQOHA http://youtu.be/nWqj6OQQOHA) showed you exactly how the thing worked, from hardware to software. It basically walked you through a use case. Later ads (http://youtu.be/NbYT7x2ZKmk http://youtu.be/NbYT7x2ZKmk) when everyone knew what an iPod was, were much more aspirational. My money says that in a few years, the iPad ads will head in that direction too. But there's a lot of education they still have to do.

solutionyogi 16y ago

It's impossible to not become a Steve Jobs fanboy. Look at this guy. In shorts, discussing marketing for his company in a way which an average person can understand. No bullshit. No paradigm shifting. No synergies. No Dilbert Speak.

famousactress 16y ago
Okay, so the shorts pulled you out of it too? Everytime the video panned out I was like "Whoa, where are his pants!?"... then back to being mesmerized. Amazing talk.
hristov 16y ago
I have managed it.
pinko 16y ago
I'd love to see a similar modern interview with him to compare and contrast... anyone know of one?
burgerbrain 16y ago
Down boy, down.
_frog 16y ago
This is part of why I think Steve Jobs is such a great spokesman for Apple as a company. He believes every word coming out of his mouth and that enthusiasm tends to be infectious. Look at any presentations he's given, the iPad 2 launch comes to mind. After each of the software demos he'd come back on stage with this look of wonder on his face and it really affects the audience on a deep emotional level.
ffffruit 16y ago
Another talk I find highly inspirational is his 2005 Stanford university commencement address. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

reso 16y ago

Honestly, I don't have much respect for "Lifestyle" advertising. Just because you can use pictures of Einstein, Ghandi, Earhart, and Russel on the screen before your logo, doesn't mean you know shit about making a product. It feels deceitful, and the fact that it works so well disturbs me.

solutionyogi 16y ago
Talk about missing the point. For Apple, 'Think Different' is not about marketing or PR speak. It's their way of life. They actually believe in it. Their products, iPod/iPhone/iPad, is a living proof of their philosophy. Apple with their products have literally reinvented the category. iPhone and iPad both have completed redefined smartphone and table category respectively. The beauty is that their 'Think Different' Ad is also very different from the usual ads you see.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
melvinram 16y ago
In the ad, they are not selling you a product. They are telling you what they believe. It would only be deceitful if what they told you they believed didn't match up with their actions. Many companies make promises that don't match up with their realities and in America, we're all a lot more skeptical of "marketing speak" for this very reason. However, when what you promise is congruent with what you deliver, it's a magical thing.

sthatipamala 16y ago

Sadly, Apple has transitioned from honoring the developers who "Think Different" and build up the Apple platform, to nickel-and-diming them

celoyd 16y ago
Apple has never treated third-party developers well in that sense. (There are exceptions, but they are exceptions.) Apple’s strategy has always been to first bring in customers who are willing to pay for high quality, and then let developers fend for themselves in that environment. This was true at the time of these ads and it’s true now. If you’re a developer, Apple isn’t going to say nice things about you, or make it particularly easy to get your app in the App Store, or give you everything for free. It’s going to give you access to a good platform with good users. Some developers seem to think this is insulting and others seem relieved.

6ren 16y ago

Who's the guy on the word "vilify" (just after Ali)? Also, what's the "Got milk?" campaign? I've often heard references to it, but I don't think it aired over here. EDIT internet to the rescue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSsswr6z9Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSsswr6z9Y

cydonian_monk 16y ago
The vilified "crazy one" is Ted Turner. He was used in one of the "Think Different" print ads as well.

steveb 16y ago

1997 was the year that Michael Dell gave the advice that Apple should close up shop and return the money to the shareholders. As a company and brand, Apple was in bad shape: Windows 95 was a huge success and Windows NT was growing in the enterprise while NeXT had faltered. Jobs really didn't have a lot in the product pipeline (the first iMac didn't come out until a year later), so the campaign needed to make employees and customers believe again in Apple. Four years from this speech the iPod was released and OSX started to show up on desktops. It took eight years before Apple went to Intel processors. And it took ten years of incremental improvement, discipline, product focus, and risk-taking before we got to the iPhone.

richcollins 16y ago

Interesting that the other examples he used were about differentiating through branding rather than the product. Apple succeeds because its product is better than the competition. I doubt many people use Apple products because they identify with the catchphrase about "changing the world for the better". They use apple products because they can do what they want to do better.

keiferski 16y ago
That may be true, but I think his point about "not focusing on the technical aspects of why Apple was better" is really important.
- richcollins 16y ago
  Right, you have to communicate the reasons that your product is better in a way that potential customers will understand. Although if you truly do something way better, your customer's will do that for you.

annon 16y ago

It's crazy to watch these videos and know that it was only 14 years ago. Apple has grown so much in a small amount of time, and steve has aged a lot getting them there.

StudyAnimal 16y ago

I like this one from when he was at NeXT. No so much about marketing, but more about product strategy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY Of course he was wrong. The workstation market did not develop a professional workstation segment, Macs and PCs just got powerful enough to make workstations irrelevant.

_frog 16y ago
Not as relevant but I saw this video a while back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A&feature=relat... It's interesting to see a young Steve Jobs perfecting his presentation style.

bvi 16y ago

On an unrelated note - has Jobs' voice itself changed at some point? It seems a lot more...high pitched and "airy" now than it was back then.

scdc 16y ago
perhaps due to weight loss?
- slantyyz 16y ago
  or maybe it's a natural change from aging.

scdc 16y ago

I have seen that 'Crazy Ones' commercial* dozens of times, still gives me goosebumps. Such good work. How much of this quality is Chiat/Day and/or the specific team at Chiat Day? Or is it mostly Jobs' vision for the ad that the agency just executes? *http://vimeo.com/7640346 http://vimeo.com/7640346

solutionyogi 16y ago
The Crazy Ones commercial is my all time favorite commercial. Unbelievably well done.