Apple 'Think Different' advertisement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzu6zeLSWq8

The source that I have discovered as an example of ‘new and exceptional’ ideals in America is a video advertisement for Apple, from 1997 narrated by its founder, Steve Jobs.

The video celebrates the free-thinkers and innovators of the world such as Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan and Alfred Hitchcock; with the tagline “Think Different.” The narration encourages the viewer to “push the human race forward” and to stand out from the crowd because the ones who do this will be the ones who “change the world.” Apple has become one of the biggest companies in America and their influence in, not just electronics, but day-to-day life has in fact ‘changed the world’ as Steve Jobs says. The company has successfully gained billion dollar profit margins for the last decade; therefore it is rare to go too many miles in America, without finding someone using an Apple product.

To me, this shows that America, and the rest of the world for that matter, have bought into Apple’s belief that if you buy one of their products, you too are “thinking differently” and are buying into their new innovation. It is a clever slogan to have for an American product because, as shown by De Crevecoeur, the idea of owning or being part of something new and exceptional is hugely important. Although not all of the figures used in the video are American, the advertisement certainly has an American feel to it. There is narration by Steve Jobs, a man with a strong Californian accent; the tag-line is optimistic and encouraging, something we are used to with advertising in the USA and the company Apple are well known for proudly being based in the United States.

De Crevecoeur wrote of the first settlers being “melted into one race” and only then can they “change the world.” This suggests that, from the very beginning of American settlement, there was a desire to make the race new, exceptional and to think differently from their European settlements. It is interesting that this has then carried through to the 21^st Century where one of the world’s largest companies will use this same idea to sell products to the ordinary American.