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Evolutionary Inc Newsletter

Marketing and evolutionary psychology insights,

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What Makes "Think Different" by Apple One of the Most Successful Campaigns in the History of Advertising?


The year is 1997. Steve Jobs has returned to Apple – a company in trouble, worth around $2 Billion at that time. The company is struggling. When asked what he would do if he were running Apple, Michael Dell said he would “shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders”.
 
Steve Jobs had another vision for the company – one related to its brand positioning. Apple worked with BWA/Chiat/Day and the result was the "Think Different" campaign – one of the most successful campaigns in the history of advertising. But, what lies at the heart of it success?

 

I have heard many practitioners praising the campaign and trying to deconstruct its triumph. Yet, I found none of these explanations satisfactory, so I derived one and here I want to share it with you. Effective advertising campaigns acknowledge our ancestral past and adopt metaphors linked to humans’ underlying motivations. Apple´s "Think Different" campaign makes no exception. The campaign exploits our innate motivation for attaining status. There are number of cues that can activate a status seeking motivation in the viewer. These include competition, success, interacting with rivals, and prestigious people.
 
Apple´s "Think Different" campaign uses figures, such as Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, and Picasso, to activate a motivation for attaining status. When a fundamental motive, such a status, is active in the mind of a consumer, the motive influences the (brand) preferences of the consumer. One of the not immediately obvious shifts in the mind caused by the status motive is from popular brands to distinctive brands. Note that at that time Apple has a market share of 5-6%. "Think Different" means nothing else but “Buy Different” – don’t buy IBM (the popular choice), buy Apple (the distinctive choice). The combination of the (status) fundamental motive and (distinctive) brand appeal got Apple out of trouble. By 2003, the company had a valuation of around $8 Billion (recently it reached $2 Trillion).
 
The status motive is not the only one that Apple utilizes, but it is a recurring one in the company´s repertoire. In 2018, Apple launched the "Behind the Mac" campaign that along ordinary people features Paul McCartney, Serena Williams, Oprah Winfrey, and Kermit the Frog. Who doesn´t want to be Kermit the Frog? Yet, given its increased current market share, Apple is no longer a distinctive choice, but rather a popular choice. Hence, the slogan has changed and is no longer "Think (/Buy) Different", but simply "Behind the Mac".
 

Practice. Dream.
Lachezar

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Copyright © 2020 Lachezar Ivanov, All rights reserved.


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