Are Apple customers still able to “Think Different”?
credit: bynonato
Once upon a time there was a fantastic campaign against tobacco. To discourage young people from smoking, the campaign visuals displayed some parents in the act of smoking cigarettes. The super incisive headline said: “How can it be so cool if your mother does it too?” (or “your father” depending on the image).
Maybe it’s my “advertising” way to think, but I’m pretty sure that today, that campaign, could be used for Apple products. I imagine a picture of my father with an iPad in his hands (I could do it easily, indeed) while the headline says: “How can it be so cool if your father has it too?”.
To get to the point, another advertising example. Are we really sure that Apple users, today, are still able to think different? “Think Different” declaimed one of the most renowed Jobs slogan. And it meant a lot of things, but above all, it was an invitation, almost an imperative, to not homologate. Now, have you ever been inside the New York City subway lately? Homologation is nothing! The challenge is trying to find someone that doesn’t have an iPhone in his hands. This is why we can say that today the “Think Different” slogan could be easily used by the competitors towards Apple (and I hope that Steve Jobs can’t hear me).
Yet, I think I’m not really far from the truth. Even the first Apple tv commercial (Macintosh 1984), the historic one in which all equal people moved like androids, today rings nearly like a mock. Because today, seeming all scary equal, are exactly Apple customers. Too much, everyone: fans and not, professionals and not, capables and not, honest to God and not, young people and not, lovers and not. Expecially not.
The real problem is that Apple is becoming addictive. We must look around and start creating Apple rehabs. Weird that nobody did it yet (or maybe yes?). Because, let’s tell the truth, how can it be healthy that in just one family – or worst – that just one only person owns at the same time four Apple computers, one Apple Watch, two iPad, three iPhone, two iPod, all more or less mini?
Riding this addiction, by now, every six months (faster than humans), Apple gives birth to new versions that push into suicide the older ones (however still immaculate) and induce compulsive purchase of the new ones – (please watch this!) – without any need or, at least, one minute of healthy remark. “I must have the latest” seems to be the new obsession. And, above all, I must shout to the entire world (that is “I have to tweet”) that I just bought it. It’s not anymore “I have the biggest” (if often the opposite) but “I have the latest”.
Come on, people even sleep outside Apple stores, on the hard paving, just to… buy. In the past we used to do that to see the Beatles. Could there be something more sad than this? Or noxious?
The truth is that tomorrow, the one who will have the courage to return to sender the next mini, air or iPhone, will be able to say “I think different”. For real.