Apple: Here’s to the Crazy Ones
Apple approached TBWA\Chiat\Day in 1997. The client wanted to re-establish its brand identity and differentiate itself from PC competitors. Apple needed to reconnect with its core audience of creative professionals and innovators, inspiring loyalty and signaling a powerful comeback. The challenge was to celebrate individuals who challenged the status quo, positioning Apple as the platform for their transformative ideas and vision.
Creative Idea
Apple featured historical rebels and visionaries as its ideal users.
Apple's "Think Different" campaign celebrates innovative misfits and rebels who challenge the status quo, positioning the brand as a platform for creative and transformative thinkers. By highlighting groundbreaking individuals who changed the world, Apple metaphorically aligned its brand with innovation, creativity, and the spirit of pushing boundaries.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
Apple possessed a legacy of being the design-led, intuitive alternative to the utilitarian PC market. Despite financial struggles, they maintained a core identity as the brand for the "rest of us" and creative thinkers.
Category
The technology sector was obsessed with "speeds and feeds," focusing on corporate productivity and standardized hardware. Computers were marketed as interchangeable office equipment rather than personal instruments of inspiration.
Customer
Creative individuals felt alienated by a world of soul-destroying corporate conformity. They sought a brand that validated their non-traditional thinking and treated technology as a catalyst for personal expression.
Culture
Society was moving toward a digital revolution where individual innovation was increasingly celebrated over institutional power. There was a deep cultural reverence for 20th-century visionaries who challenged the status quo.
Company
Apple possessed a legacy of being the design-led, intuitive alternative to the utilitarian PC market. Despite financial struggles, they maintained a core identity as the brand for the "rest of us" and creative thinkers.
Category
The technology sector was obsessed with "speeds and feeds," focusing on corporate productivity and standardized hardware. Computers were marketed as interchangeable office equipment rather than personal instruments of inspiration.
Strategy:
Position Apple as the essential tool for creative rebels by aligning the brand with history’s most transformative iconoclasts.
Customer
Creative individuals felt alienated by a world of soul-destroying corporate conformity. They sought a brand that validated their non-traditional thinking and treated technology as a catalyst for personal expression.
Culture
Society was moving toward a digital revolution where individual innovation was increasingly celebrated over institutional power. There was a deep cultural reverence for 20th-century visionaries who challenged the status quo.
Strategy:
Position Apple as the essential tool for creative rebels by aligning the brand with history’s most transformative iconoclasts.
Strategy Technique
Make the Brand the Hero of a Bigger Fight
Apple positioned itself as the essential platform for "the Crazy Ones" fighting to challenge the status quo. This aligned the brand with a larger mission of innovation and societal change.
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Creative Technique
Define, Label and Group
The campaign coined "the Crazy Ones" to define and label a group of visionary individuals. This created a distinct identity for those who challenge the status quo, aligning Apple with their spirit.
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