“Looking across the water from the Hog Island Oyster Company in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, you can see the Bay Bridge as it heads toward Treasure Island, Oakland and Berkeley. With the sun riding toward the West behind us, the air is briny and the sky is the color of tangelos. We are sitting at a table, six of us, drinking beer, eating oysters, French fries and crispy fried sardines. There is a photograph somewhere, a group selfie that captures this occasion,” Patrick Hanlon writes for Forbes. “In the photograph, my friend Jon is leaning over toward Craig Tanimoto. But the photograph does not capture what Jon says to Craig as he leans into him. ‘So,’ Jon asks. ‘How does it feel to be the man who saved Apple Computer?'”
“Craig Tanimoto is the guy who actually wrote the two words ‘Think different’ for Apple. He placed the words above Thomas Edison’s head, Einstein’s head, above Ghandi’s head. And when he did, he put a ding in the universe,” Hanlon writes. “But even after eighteen years since the ‘Think different’ campaign first appeared on walls everywhere, Tanimoto has never fully taken credit for the two words he came up with in 1997, when he was an art director at Apple’s advertising agency Chiat-Day. In fact, even though Tanimoto has been rewarded for the campaign he initiated to help save Apple—and even though several other people have obliquely accepted credit, Craig Tanimoto humbly accepts an authorship that is his, and his alone.”
Hanlon writes, “It always goes something like this: ‘I don’t think anyone knew what the answer was,’ says Tanimoto. And about the Think different campaign specifically: ‘It wasn’t what we were looking for, but it was everything that we needed.'”
Tons more more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Jobs was the man who saved Apple.
Even though he had a lot of help, including Craig Tanimoto’s, without Steve Jobs, there would be no Apple today.
Regardless of the headline’s veracity or lack thereof, the article does make for an interesting read.
So, we’re expected to believe that a slogan saved Apple? That border’s on the offensive, and also actually runs contrary to thinking differently.
MDN’s take: Yes, you can give a lot of deserved credit to Jobs, but Apple’s customer’s saved Apple. With a lot of help from crappy Vista.
Right. Apple’s customers saved Apple. But Steve Jobs played the biggest role in saving it. In late December 1996, I was about to buy a new computer. Because it looked like Apple was about to fail, I almost bought a Windows PC. I went so far as to decide on exactly what I was going to buy, and I was looking around for the best price. Then, I read that Apple had bought NeXT. I was familiar with NeXT technology, and I knew that this would mean the resurgence of Apple. A few weeks later, I bought a new Mac, and I can happily take a tiny smidgeon of credit for helping to save Apple. But in the end, Steve deserves the most credit. I love to think that in a way, Apple’s purchase of NeXT was actually a reverse acquisition. NeXT technology still lives on today in every Apple device.
Exactly the same for me! Even my Apple service engineer for our company computers said Apple is finished, Windows is the way to go. But my gut said no – keep with Apple, and I re-equipped our small company with all new Apple computers. Glad I did. Go Apple.
Agreed, we all (well, many of us here) played a very small part in saving Apple. But MDN is right, Steve Jobs and his team played the biggest part.
I love the “Think Different” campaign, however it never would have seen the light of day had it not been approved by Steve Jobs and others. Would have been just another pitch.
Two different words actually saved Apple overall and they were posited by a man born before Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs used those two words to guide what was needed at Apple to give customers.
Peter Drucker, who studied & spoke on business management, mostly at the Claremont College, noted that every successful business is about delivering ‘customer satisfaction.’
I agree with MDN’s take: no single advertising campaign or slogan (or even ALL advertising campaigns and slogans) can save a company. I vividly remember when those ads ran and I know many people who saw them and said, “Nice. But I still can’t afford a Mercedes.”
It took a LOT more than a beautiful ad to save Apple. At the very least, it was the products BEHIND the ad that saved them.
That said, it was a great set of ads…
A verb paired with an adjective, sadly no longer very different.
When it comes to saving Apple, I don’t think people give Gil Amelio and Ellen Hancock enough credit for choosing NeXT over Be. If they’d gone the other way, Apple would be history, and so would NeXT.
-jcr
Great point. Without this first step there would have been no second chance for SJ.
I credit Gil with stepping out of the way in deference to Steve Jobs. Amelio was in over his head and he knew it.
Ellen Hancock was a moron. She also favored going with Solaris, and she tried to marginalize Steve when he came back to Apple. We saw how long she lasted after that.
Pretty sure it was more than one person who “saved” Apple. If it was just the slogan then that implies that everything else didn’t matter – which is clearly bollocks.
Um Fred Anderson? The guy who brought them back from the brink and even pushed for a high styled home computer. Jobs owes everything to this man’s great work and sadly, Anderson had to leave Apple after the backdated stock options fiasco. Now who do you think was pushing for that, Anderson or Jobs :).
Gil Amelio for Apple agreeing to buy NeXT and Steve Jobs who came with it!
Totally agree.
For me, it was three words that saved Apple-
“One more thing..”
Agree totally!
A world without Apple would almost be like if the Nazis had won the war.
Think about it – a windows world with no alternative. There would have been no iPhone, iPad, cool laptops etc. IT would have been more cheap crap that never worked properly.
Jobs certainly saved Apple with his clear vision. But it is clear that he needed help from others to make that vision come true. Ive, Cook, Rubinstein, et al. Without the team it would not have happened and the marketing certainly played an important role in getting the message out.
Wasn’t it the Bondi Blue iMac, followed by the Powerbook G4, followed by the iPod, followed by the iPhone, followed by the iPad that saved Apple? A combination of Steve Job’s instinct and charisma combined with Jonny Ive’s design genius, that’s what saved Apple from extinction. Great companies are made by having great products, you can have the best slogan in the world but without the products to back it up you have nothing.
Clearly, neither Craig Tanimoto nor Lee Clow “saved” Apple. But they DID move the needle. The “Think Different” campaign changed the discussion about Apple from “beleaguered” to “what are they doing now?”, and it bought time until the iMac could fully rejuvenate the brand.
For those who don’t think advertising can work on a deep and subconscious level about a brand, let me pose a question I ask at advertising seminars I’ve given:
By law, vodka is odorless, colorless and tasteless. Yet if you were out on a date, or buying the boss a drink, would you choose Smirnoff or Grey Goose? Or a generic brand vs. Absolut?
I agree about how advertising can work, but the vodka example doesn’t fly with me. You can definitely taste the difference between Popov and Smirnoff for example. Once you get into the upper shelf it’s not a big difference, so no I wouldn’t pay for Grey Goose over Smirnoff, not least because buying expensive drinks doesn’t impress women.
The three words that saved Apple were developers, developers, developers.
You’re both wrong. Steve Jobs and everyone in the entire company saved Apple.
After reading many posts on this site, I have concluded that Apple still can’t survive without their armchair quarterbacking.
Fantasyland chit-chat. Thank the marketing team. They gave a great contribution. They thought different(ly). Marketing Mavens at work.
Then thank everyone else who worked their wits to a frazzle and also ‘saved Apple.’