Updated March 7, 2026 / CBS News
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When Steve Jobs returned to Apple on July 6, 1997, it was a company that had lost direction. Eleven years after his departure, Apple had cycled through three CEOs in four years, morale was low, top talent was leaving, internal rivalries and even lawsuits between divisions had become common. Jobs saw a business without clear leadership, strategy, or what he called a soul.
He reentered the company uncompensated and relentless. Jobs replaced most of the board, reorganized the company, and dramatically simplified the product line—cutting roughly 70 Mac models down to four (two laptops, two desktops) so engineering and design teams could concentrate on a few great products. The moves were disruptive, but Jobs believed rigorous focus was essential to restore quality and coherence.
Advertising was another problem: Apple was running a dozen inconsistent campaigns. Jobs wanted one unifying message celebrating creativity, independence, and the company’s iconoclastic spirit. Los Angeles agency Chiat/Day proposed a stark, memorable idea: black-and-white images of revolutionary thinkers and moments, pierced only by the striped Apple logo and the slogan Think Different. Creative director Rob Siltanen wrote a script that began as a salute to “the crazy ones” — the misfits, rebels and troublemakers — and ended with the notion that those who dare to change the world are the ones who actually do.
Jobs initially dismissed the spot, and Siltanen briefly left the project. But 17 days before the scheduled premiere, Jobs reversed himself and approved the concept. Clearing image rights proved difficult: estates and families often refuse commercial use of famous figures. Jobs personally intervened, calling the families of JFK and Jim Henson and flying to meet Yoko Ono to gain approval for a John Lennon clip. Those who agreed were compensated, with payments often directed to charity or covered by Apple products.
To keep the campaign from becoming about Jobs, he decided against narrating it himself and chose actor Richard Dreyfuss for the voiceover. The commercial debuted on September 28, 1997, during ABC’s broadcast of Toy Story: a minute of piano-accompanied black-and-white shots of Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King Jr., Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Picasso and others, with no product shots and no direct mention of computers. Viewers who didn’t recognize every face often watched again, and the ad sparked conversation about what Apple stood for.
Think Different became a cultural hit — winning awards, an Emmy, and sparking countless parodies — while restoring pride inside Apple. The campaign cost roughly $100 million and ran in multiple formats over about five years.
Barely six months after the ad’s debut, at the January 1998 Macworld Expo, Jobs—bearded, more assured, and clearly in charge—delivered a keynote that announced not a gadget but a turnaround: Apple was back in the black, and its renewed focus was starting to pay off.
Excerpted from Apple: The First 50 Years by David Pogue. Copyright © 2026 by David Pogue. Excerpt used with permission from Simon & Schuster.