Apple's 'The Crazy Ones'

The most effective ads, to my sensibility, are, as a portfolio, the Apple ads. Their incorporation of rock and roll, their suggestion of a Mac being like a great car, their connecting of the Mac and the outdoors and their let-the-Mac-speak-for-itself ethos have all appealed to my sensibility and have made me want to own a Mac. And an iPhone and an iPod and an iPad. I also still have the iSticks speakers I bought for my light blue iMac in 1999. They still work, and they still look great.

However, it's Apple's portrayal within their ads of their product's gracefulness, or 'the marriage of elegance and power,' that really speaks to me.

And the one Apple ad campaign that stands head and shoulders above the rest, and, for me, above any ad, is their The Crazy Ones video - from their 1997 Think Different campaign. It shows black and white images of some of my favorite, and - not coincidentally - some of the most creative thinkers and maverick personalities of our time: Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr, Richard Branson, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Amelia Earhart, Pablo Picasso, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Maria Callas, with a voiceover that begins: 'Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers...'  The last image is of a young, unknown girl, which speaks volumes. It gives me the chills though out, and makes me well up at the end to this day. The effectiveness of the ad is due to its reminding us to be ourselves, to realize our potential and to not be afraid to be misunderstood. It reminds us to 'think different.' We need the reminder. And the MacBook Pro I'm writing this on helps me to do that.


http://youtu.be/8rwsuXHA7RA