“Meet Ken Segall — the man who dreamed up the name ‘iMac’ and wrote the famous Think Different campaign,” Leander Kahney reports for Cult of Mac.
“Segall is a veteran creative director who worked at Apple’s agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, back in the day,” Kahney reports. “‘I’ve put in 14 years working with Steve Jobs on both Apple and NeXT,’ says Segall. ‘I’m the author of the Think Different campaign and the guy who came up with the whole ‘i’ thing, starting with iMac.'”
Kaheny reports, “Segall was still consulting for Apple until a couple of years ago when he started working for Dell. ‘Dell and Apple: It’s night and day,’ Segall says. ‘It’s a transactional world Dell lives in. It’s all about numbers. Everything they say about Apple making products for themselves is true. Apple — it’s about changing the world. For everyone else, it’s about the money.'”
Kahney reports, “In this exclusive interview, Segall talks about working with Steve Jobs, how Jobs initially hated the word ‘iMac,’ and the importance of the Think Different campaign to Apple.”
Read the full interview here.
Great, the man who made all our lives snappier
So whatcha think Jobs’s idea for the iMac’s name was? “Mac Squash?”
He also taught John Travolta how to dance.
You wanna know what iThink?
Wonder if his nickname is iKen?
Segall is the long-lost twin of René Auberjonois.
Wonder how long he’ll be working for Dell after Mikey reads this?
iWonder..
I have a feeling there are many readers here who would be willing to part with some serious cash in order to find out Steve’s original idea for the name, as well as the other rejected ones…
Sure most of his roles have been in total schlock, and his best work might have been in Half Past Dead, and Under Siege, but at least he could make fun of himself on Saturday Night Live.
Really liked this article, and it’s a VERY interesting blog (to me, at least).
Who cares?? I Dont…
How about… “iDon’t Care”!
I wonder if the execs at Dell got the joke when Ken wandered into their boardroom for the first time and said…”All your Dells are belong to us”.
…..silence………
When I read the words of the original “Think Different” commercial (and print ad), I choke up a bit. Not because I am a Machead, but because the words written by Ken Segall are sheer poetry. There are but a handful of ads that have ever been created that rose to this level.
At the time, the commercial was viciously criticized. No less than Bob Garfield, the self-important pundit ad critic of Advertising Age magazine sniffed at it. But then, he was the embodiment of a PC. Despite his exalted status as the preeminent ad critic of the industry, he had no vision. Garfield failed to comprehend that this was no mere ad. It was a call to arms. It was a clear statement of what Apple now was, and what the company was to become.
Great moments are often overlooked. When the original iPod was introduced, for the most part, it was ignored by the media, especially in the computer and consumer electronics trade publications. They failed to see any significance. The ever self-important Commander Taco of slashdot dismissed it as not being as powerful as more clunky devices of the day, and hissed that it only worked on a Mac.
He, like others, failed to see that it was not a mere product. It was the dawn and re-invention of a new category, and much more. Inauspiciously launched with amazingly little hype, the iPod stands in stark contrast to the early noise surrounding the Zune. And we know what happened next.
Kudos to Ken Segall. His words still ring true today. While naming a product or writing the words to an ad cannot by themselves determine their destiny (an ad is a promise, but the product must fulfill the promise), his contributions began to redefine Apple in people’s minds.
Over the course of the succeeding months and years, the Think Different campaign began to make sense to the larger public, and perhaps even the very visionless Bob Garfield. But it took the genius and vision of Steve Jobs, and a dedicated corps of brilliant people at Apple to bring the company back, and build it to the company it is today. THAT is thinking different.
iAdmire him for what he created for Apple, but am saddened with his decision to join “The Dark Side.”
“Segall was still consulting for Apple until a couple of years ago when he started working for Dell.”
Money talks I suppose. But creativity flies!
You’ll miss that part Mr. Segall.
Seems everybody has forgotten about the Rowenta iRon…
> Jobs said he was betting the company on the machine and so it needed a great name. He suggested one at the meeting, Segall says, but it was terrible. It would “curdle your blood.”
Oh no, Ken, you took the bait!
>“He didn’t like iMac when he saw it,” Segall says. “I personally liked it, so I went back again with three or four new names, but I said we still like ‘iMac.”
He said: ‘I don’t hate it this week, but I still don’t like it.’”
The joke’s on Ken. Stevie loved the name. He just didn’t want to pay for it. LOL
Yes, I did go to the Dark Side — but I’m back now. Maybe the article wasn’t clear, but I have been free of Dell for some time now.
Ken…..Great job I love the whole “i” thing! Glad to see you are back on the “we’re changing the world side”.
@Buster- someone set Dell up the bomb!
Shouldn’t it be “Think Differently”?
but then who cares? After all Steve Jobs. Him a grate man
Rather ironic that for Dell and “… everyone else, it’s all about the money” and they’re going broke. Apple on the other hand is trying to make insanely great products that “change the world” and they’re making bucket loads of the money.
“Think Different” never seemed ungrammatical to me because I interpreted “Different” being used as a noun and not an adverb; for example, “Think Ice Cream” or “Think Jaguar”.
I always thought the people who considered the phrase as bad grammar absolutely were not thinking differently(adverb).
@IndyMac: Exactly, perfectly, brilliantly correct. Apple is one of the few companies that understands the best way to make tons of money is to focus on greatness and never compromise on quality. Companies that focus on near-term profit simply won’t survive long-term.
@Jaundiced: Bingo! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to explain this
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> Think big, think profits, think green, there are a million of them. Thankfully, the logo began to embody that meaning and the words were no longer necessary — nor were these silly explanations…
Come on over to my blog anytime you care to discuss further. Trying to have a little fun over there: http://kensegall.com/blog