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There are two kinds of people in the world, and judging by their latest ads, Apple doesn't seem to be speaking to either of them. Sure, Apple's new "Think Different" campaign, which debuted during ABC's recent broadcast of Toy Story, aspires to be a clarion call to the "misfits, rebels, and troublemakers" who're "crazy enough to think they can change the world," but it seems doomed to appeal to nobody and change nothing. Especially Apple's sales figures.
It's true, there is a kernel of wisdom in these new ads by TBWA Chiat/Day, which was responsible for the acclaimed "1984" Apple ad which ran only once, during the Super Bowl of the same year. In the Net-centric era, you'd have to be a little "crazy" to sink cash into a new Mac that, even on a T1, would likely get its clock cleaned by a 486 with a 28.8 modem. But this surely isn't what they meant. So, uh, what do they mean?
Apple's evocation of the rebel "genius," as exemplified by images of Einstein, Bob Dylan, Gandhi, and a seemingly constipated little girl, is saddled with so much drag-and-drop irony it can barely be understood as an artifact of 1997. It's not just that retro sound and imagery are currently being ladled onto everything from Burger King commercials to Intel ads, but that the images used are almost identical to those found in Wieden & Kennedy's Microsoft ads. In fact, the roster of historical moments found in the new Apple spots, from MLK expounding on his dream to John and Yoko in bed, is most useful as a convenient index to the famous faces that have been used to sell everything from sneakers to credit cards in the past 10 years. These luminaries may share the quality of having "no respect for the status quo," but the average viewer might infer that the status quo is Apple's raison d'être.
Recent ad theory suggests that the most attentive consumers of any ad are those who already own the product, as they enjoy being reminded every now and again that their money was well spent. If so, the least those of us chained to 7100s and PowerBooks could expect is a little validation, and a slogan that helps us proudly articulate our folly. A campaign based on the notion of "slow, but beautiful" could be swapped in easily, erasing the current images and replacing them with grainy photos of Marilyn Monroe, Chauncy Gardner, and late-period Ali. Or "brilliantly simple, simply powerful" with spindled snapshots of Jumbo the elephant and bathtub gin. It may be too much to expect the modern equivalent of the 1984 ad (which so troubled Apple they attempted to pull it, and ended up running only because they were unable to resell the commercial air time they'd purchased). But if the best that can be done is a trite nostalgia-grab, undifferentiated from its competitors in any meaningful (much less tangible) manner, perhaps it really is time for the last few believers to start asking themselves where they want to go today, rather than how they intend to get there.
This article appeared originally in HotWired.
