Apple has built one of the world’s most valuable brands on advertising that rarely talks about specifications. From the start, its best campaigns sold an attitude: Apple as the choice of rebels, creators and people who think differently.
The template was set by “1984”, the Ridley Scott commercial that introduced the Macintosh during Super Bowl XVIII and never showed the computer. After a decade of decline, “Think Different” in 1997 honored Einstein, Gandhi and other “crazy ones” to remind people what Apple stood for. In 2003 the iPod silhouette ads turned white earphones into a status symbol, and from 2006 “Get a Mac” made Windows look clumsy with two men on a white background.
The same confidence has occasionally tipped into overreach. In 2014 Apple pushed U2’s Songs of Innocence into more than 500 million iTunes libraries without asking, and many customers treated the gift as spam. In 2024 the “Crush” iPad Pro ad showed musical instruments and art supplies flattened in a hydraulic press, and Apple apologized within days.
Both misfires came from the same place as the successes. Apple’s marketing works when it celebrates the people who use its products, and it stumbles when it seems to forget them.