Think Different: Apple’s Blue Ocean Formula for Success

The message behind Apple’s ‘Think Different’ slogan

The tagline of Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign expressed how, under Steve Jobs’ leadership, Apple would construct a radically different future from its troubled days in the early 1990s.

Apple’s ‘Think Different’ slogan altered our perceptions of campaigns, advertisements, posters, and, of course, computers and technology. Here’s the transcript from the “Crazy Ones” advertisement:

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 quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

The message communicates to customers what Apple stands for by celebrating and linking Apple to those innovators who moved the world ahead. The inference is that Apple users also think different, ask different questions, and potentially change the world.

In Steve Jobs’ own words, “you always had to be a little different to buy an Apple computer.”

“I think you had to really think differently when you bought a Mac. It was a totally different computer, worked in a totally different way, used a totally different part of your brain. And it opened up a computer world for a lot of people who thought differently … And I think you still have to think differently to buy an Apple computer.”

Apple now had three characteristics of a good strategy: it was focused, divergent, and had a clear and compelling tagline. From this point on, the company made several strategically critical and distinctive moves that transformed Apple from a struggling tech company into the biggest and arguably most influential company in the world.