Think Different(ly) about 1984
During the 1990s, Apple commissoned ad agency, TBWA, to create the Think Different slogan. The one minute black-and-white television commercial was narrated by Richard Dreyfuss and featured footages significant historical people of the past, including Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon, R Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Graham, Jim Henson, Frank Lloyd Wright and Pablo Picasso. Despite its ingenuity, the ad was not without controversy. Critics have denounced Apple's exploitative use of historic figures to promote its own brand while supporters see the ad as a tribute. The full text of the ad as follows:

Think Different (View)
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing that you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.


1984 (View)
Another one of my favorite ads is for the launch of Macintosh. The 1984 ad was only televised once during the half time segment of the Superbowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. It was made and directed by Ridley Scott at a cost of US$1.5 million. The cleverness of the ad was to draw reference to an Orwellian Nineteen Eighty-Four world and suggest then industry giant IBM as Big Brother.