Walter Isaacson’s recent book on Steve Jobs unpacks Apple’s 1990s Think Different campaign, and the agency’s word choice in particular–something I have to admit I had wondered about before:

Isaacson writes: “They debated the grammatical issue: If ‘different’ was supposed to modify the verb ‘think,’ it should be an adverb, as in ‘think differently.’ But Jobs insisted that he wanted ‘different’ to be used as a noun, as in ‘think victory’ or ‘think beauty.’ Also, it echoed colloquial use, as in ‘think big.’ Jobs later explained, ‘We discussed whether it was correct before we ran it. It’s grammatical, if you think about what we’re trying to say. It’s not think the same, it’s think different. Think a little different, think a lot different, think different. ‘Think differently’ wouldn’t hit the meaning for me.’”

I’d always read the tag line as being a command for people to think in a new way, to think differently, to essentially change how their brain thought. But Jobs’ quotes make it clear that he wanted it to be about the content of that thought–to think different at every turn. Subtle differences, to be sure.

Also the book reproduces the text of the awesome 1995 “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” campaign. Narrated in its final form by Richard Dreyfuss, it’s a strong piece of advertising to be sure:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. – Apple Inc.

And here’s Jobs on a PBS show expanding on the Think Different notion in a compelling way:

“In every case we may think of the designer as a master storyteller whose skill is measured by his or her ability to craft a compelling, consistent, and believable narrative. It’s no accident that writers and journalists now often work alongside mechanical engineers and cultural anthropologists in design teams.”

“From the perspective of a design thinker, a new idea will have to tell a meaningful story in a compelling way if it is to make itself heard. There is still a role for advertising, but less as a medium for blasting messages at people than as a way of helping turn its audience into storytellers themselves. Anyone who has a positive experience with an idea should be able to communicate its essential elements in a way that encourages other people to try it for themselves.”

They write about the work:  ”VIB is a life sciences research institute, based in Flanders, Belgium. They perform basic research with a strong focus on translating scientific results into pharmaceutical, agricultural and industrial applications. For their fifteenth anniversary, we did the entire event branding, for which we used only chalk and a huge blackboard. For this event we also designed a box with nine books in it. For the books only we made more then 200 large chalk drawings.”

If you click here you can see a lot of the work for this event. (Scroll right on bottom of page.)

These videos are from a series called Toyota Auto-Biography.

The best part of these pieces are the seemingly unvarnished words used and stories told by the various Toyota owners. The improvisational and honest-seeming quality of the stories matched with tight animation is their best feature.

According to agency Saatchi & Saatchi:

“In July 2010, we launched a successful Facebook campaign, called ‘Toyota Auto-Biography,’ asking real owners to tell their favorite stories about their Toyotas. Next, we toured the country recording real owners telling their stories, then collaborated with artists, such as Julia Pott, to create each owner’s unique piece. The Toyota Auto-Biography shorts helped draw over 100,000 new fans to Toyota’s Facebook page. Since the campaign launch. over 14,000 owner stories have been posted.”

Here are two:

Recycling is great, but not the cure-all we all think it is: Recycling takes a lot of water and a lot of energy. In fact. much of the recycled waste in San Francisco gets shipped all the way to China

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All that got me into trying not to produce any waste and only recycle things. I cancelled my trash pickup (though the trash hauling company has been encouraging me to sign up again).

Bea Johnson, in neighboring Mill Valley, has gone many steps further than I have, and here’s a good video documenting her family’s efforts into the land of zero waste. You can see in the video that to not produce waste means rethinking everything. How do you shop?  What do you buy?  Where do you get your groceries?  How much food and how many toys should the kids have? In addition to being a good thing to do, it’s a great example too of the act of completely rethinking normal processes, an exercise in gaining a new perspective on a very basic system that most people don’t question.

Like future wide-spread vegetarianism, I can see the writing on the wall–people are going to get behind this movement.

PS: In the same vein, Patagonia, ever on the cutting edge, ran an ad on Black Friday telling consumers “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” Read the ad copy here. And that ad inspired Jason Leonard of the Semi-Rad blog to extrapolate on other things not to do.

“There’s a new story at your business every day. Maybe you dreamed up a great idea or shot down a bad one. Maybe a customer surprised you with the way he or she uses your product. Perhaps a client or an employee came to you with a suggestion for something you’d never thought of before…There are hidden opportunities in these everyday moments. They make great stories—and in today’s business world, you’re missing an opportunity if you ignore a good story. That’s because great brands are the ones that tell the best stories. Sure, good products and service matter, but stories are what connect people with companies..Video is a great way to show off a company’s personality, people, culture, and customers. It helps humanize a business.”

See the full article here.

In a similar vein, there’s a write-up in Photo District News about Gap’s efforts to display the inner workings of its Los Angeles-based denim design studio. The idea is a good one; you will have to judge the quality of Gap’s execution for yourself.

“Gap refers to its new design studio as the Pico Creative Loft. There, a team of designers holed up to rethink Gap’s 1969 Premium Jeans line, which was launched two years ago in celebration of the retailer’s 40th anniversary. Gap’s agency, Ogilvy & Mather in New York, devised a multipronged campaign featuring the real people behind the 1969 line—including the designers, merchants, the “wash specialist” and even the office mascot, a pit bull…[Ogilvy] tapped Cool Hunting, the trend-spotting Web site for style, design and technology, to produce a series of more than 20 short videos that people would feel compelled to watch, and maybe even pass around.”

See the full article here.

Here’s a characteristic profile video, and more are here.