Steve Jobs on Marketing

These are the exact words of Steve Jobs before he announced the Think Different Ad Campaign. So, in the words of the genius himself, here we go:

"To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a noisy world. We’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is!

So we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us. Apply fortunately is one of the half a dozen brands in the whole world. Right up there with Nike, Coke, Disney, and Sony. It is one of the great of the greats. 

Not just in this country, but all around the globe. And even a great brand needs investment and care if it’s gonna retain its relevance and vitality. And Apple brand has clearly suffered from neglect in this area in the last few years and we need to bring it back. 

The way to do that is not to talk about speeds and fees. It’s not to talk about bits and mega-hertz. It’s not to talk about why we are better than windows. 

The dairy industry tried for 20 years to convince you that milk was good for you.

It’s a lie. But they tried it anyway. And the sales were falling. And then they tried “Got Milk” and the sales went up. Got milk wasn’t even talking about the product. In fact, it focuses on the absence of the product. But the best example of all and one of the greatest jobs of marketing that the universe has ever seen is Nike. 

Remember, Nike sells a commodity. They sell shoes. And yet, when you think of Nike, You feel something different than a shoe company. 

In their ads, as you know, they don’t ever talk about the product. They don’t ever tell you about their air soles. And why they are better than reebok’s air soles. 

What does Nike do in their advertising? 

They honor great athletes and they honor great athletics. That’s who they are. That’s what they are about. Apple spends a fortune on advertising. You’d never know it…..You’d never know it. 

So…. When I got here, Apple just fired their agency and there was a competition with 23 agencies that (four years from now) we would pick one. 

And we blew that up and hired Chiat/Day, the ad agency that I was fortunate enough to work with years ago. And created some award-winning work including the commercial voted the best ad ever made in 1984, by advertising professionals. 

And we started working about eight weeks ago and the question we asked was “Our customers want to know who is apple and what is it that we stand for. Where do we fit in this world?”

What we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases. But Apple is about something more than that. 

Apple at its core. Its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. That’s what we believe. And we have had the opportunity to work with people like that. We have had the opportunity to work with people like you. 

With software developers, with customers, who have done it. In some big, and some small ways! And we believe that, in the world, people can change it for the better. 

And that those people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones that actually do! 

And so, what we’re going to do in our first brand marketing campaign in several years is to get back to that core value! 

A lot of things have changed. The market is in a totally different place than where it was a decade ago. And apple is totally different and the apple’s place in it is totally different. 

And believe me, the products, the distribution strategy, and the manufacturing are totally different and we understand that but values and core values, those things shouldn’t change. 

The things that apple believes in at its core are the same things Apple really stands for today and so we wanted to find a way to communicate this. And what we have is something that I am very moved by. 

It honors those people who have changed the world. Some of them are living, and some of them are not. But the ones that aren’t, as you will see, you’ll know that if they ever used a computer it would have been a mac!

And the theme of the campaign is “Think Different”. It’s honoring the people who think different and who move the world forward. And it is what we are about. It touches the soul of this company. So I am gonna go ahead and roll it. And hope that you feel the same about it as do!

And then they roll the ad: