Tag: think different

Obviously, most people know Apple as the company that makes the iPhone. That makes sense, the iPhone—after all—is the single most successful consumer product in history. It’s the reason Apple is a $3 trillion company.

But—believe it or not—there was a time before the iPhone when Apple was known for something else. And it’s latest ad is a telling reminder of what might be its best era.

The company’s latest ad isn’t about the iPhone. Technically, it’s about the Mac, but really, it’s about Apple and what the company wants you to think about what it stands for. And, it’s a reminder of a very different era for the company.

The ad opens with the flicker of a cursor on a blank screen and a voice that sounds both familiar and true.

“Every story you love, every invention that moves you, every idea you wished was yours, all began as nothing. Just a flicker on the screen asking a simple question: What do you see?”

The voice is Jane Goodall’s.

If you’ve followed Apple for long enough, that name already connects a few dots. Goodall was one of the people featured in Apple’s original Think Different print ad campaign in 1997—the one that marked Steve Jobs’ return to the company he co-founded and, in many ways, saved. The one that wasn’t really about computers at all, but about creativity. It was about imagination and people who “see things differently.”

And that’s what makes this new spot, Great Ideas Start on Mac, feel like a callback to Apple’s best era—the one before the iPhone, before the trillion-dollar valuation, before Apple became the most valuable company on earth. The one when Apple’s identity wasn’t tied to growth curves or quarterly revenue, but to the artists and dreamers who used its tools to make something new.

I have always loved that version of Apple.

Before the iPhone, Apple’s entire story—its entire brand—revolved around creativity. It was a company for artists, designers, writers, and musicians. The Mac wasn’t just a computer—it was a tool just as much as a pencil or guitar or paintbrush. You bought one because you wanted to make something beautiful, and you believed that tools should serve creativity, not the other way around.

Jobs made that belief central to Apple’s DNA. He often said that Apple existed at “the intersection of technology and the liberal arts,” and he meant it. He saw computers not as boxes of circuits but as something that could unlock the greatest forms of human expression.

That’s why the Think Different campaign worked so well. It wasn’t just an ad; it was a manifesto. It told the world that Apple was for people who imagined something that didn’t exist yet. It was about what you could see that others couldn’t.

This new ad doesn’t use those words, but it carries the same spirit. The flicker on the screen is also familiar and true. It reminds us that creativity doesn’t start with code or pixels, but with curiosity.

There’s something poetic about Apple bringing back Goodall. She’s not a celebrity in the traditional sense. She’s a scientist, an activist, and a storyteller. Her work studying chimpanzees wasn’t just groundbreaking—it changed how we think about what it means to be human.

That’s exactly why she was in the original Think Different campaign. She represented the kind of independent creativity and courage that Jobs seemed to admire most: the people who don’t just see the world differently, but act on it.

In this new ad, her voice bridges the gap between Apple’s past and present. When she asks, “What do you see?” it’s a question Jobs himself might have asked. What do you see when you look at a blank page? Or an empty timeline? Or a flickering screen waiting for your next idea?

In 1997, Apple needed to remind the world what it stood for. The company was nearly bankrupt, but the message wasn’t about survival. It was about purpose. That’s what made Think Different so powerful—it was a declaration that creativity mattered.

This new ad feels like a reminder that it still does.