DEVELOP A MESSIANIC SENSE OF PURPOSE 37
The campaign won a ton of awards, became a cult favorite,
and lasted five years, which is an eternity in the life cycle of ad
campaigns. The campaign reinvigorated the public’s appetite for
all things Apple, including an interest in one of the most influ-
ential iconoclasts in the computer world, Steve Jobs himself.
In The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, Alan Deutschman, who,
as mentioned earlier, was pulled into Jobs’s reality distortion
field, describes a meeting between Jobs and Newsweek’s Katie
Hafner, the first outsider to see the new “Think Different” ads.
According to Deutschman, Hafner arrived at Apple’s headquar-
ters on a Friday morning and waited a long time for Jobs to show
up. “Finally he emerged. His chin was covered by stubble. He
was exhausted from having stayed up all night editing footage
for the ‘Think Different’ television spot. The creative directors
at Chiat/Day would send him video clips over a satellite connec-
tion, and he would say yes or no. Now the montage was finally
complete. Steve sat with Katie and they watched the commercial.
Steve was crying. ‘That’s what I love about him,’ Katie recalls. ‘It
wasn’t trumped up. Steve was genuinely moved by that stupid
ad.’ ”^23
Those ads touched Jobs deeply because they reflected every-
thing that pushed Jobs to innovate, excel, and succeed. He saw
himself in the faces of those famous people who advanced the
human race and changed the world.
As a journalist, I learned that everyone has a story to tell. I
realize we are not all creating computers that will change the
way people live, work, play, and learn. Notwithstanding, the
fact is that most of us are selling a product or working on a proj-
ect that has some benefit to the lives of our customers. Whether
you work in agriculture, automobiles, technology, finance, or
any number of other industries, you have a magnificent story
to tell. Dig deep to identify that which you are most passionate
about. ‘Once you do, share that enthusiasm with your listeners.
People want to be moved and inspired, and they want to believe
in something. Make them believe in you.
“There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love,” Steve Jobs
once said: “ ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it