Apple’s 1997 advertising campaign was called “Think Different.”
The campaign was created by advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day shortly after Steve Jobs returned to Apple. Its famous television commercial, “Crazy Ones,” featured black-and-white images of influential figures such as Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King Jr., Pablo Picasso, and Mahatma Gandhi. The narration described them as people who saw the world differently and tried to change it.
“Think Different” was grammatically unusual because “different” conventionally functions as an adjective, but the wording became closely identified with Apple’s brand. It appeared in print advertisements, posters, billboards, and product marketing as Apple repositioned itself as a creative alternative to mainstream personal-computer brands.
The campaign did not originally promote one specific Apple product. Instead, it rebuilt the company’s identity around creativity and independent thinking. A common mix-up is calling the campaign “Crazy Ones,” which is the name commonly used for its best-known commercial rather than the campaign’s central slogan.