Steve Jobs explains branding
Apple's "Think Different / Change the World" ad was a brilliant piece of marketing.  But it doesn't seem that really stuck as the core value of their brand.  If Nike's message is "we hang around great athletes," Apple's message today is "we hang around the young and hip," [1] which is different than "we hang around people who change the world."<p>You could argue that these are somehow related, that the young and hip would be attracted by the Think Different ad.  I don't dispute that.  But the later ads of kids jamming with their iPod ear buds communicate a message that is much closer to the general perception of Apple as a brand today.<p>--<p>[1] In the clothing industry, this type of positioning wouldn't be noteworthy or distinguishing.  But in consumer electronics, advertising more like Abercrombie & Fitch and less like IBM has worked out brilliantly for them.<p>[2] The pre-2000 perception of Apple's brand was also somewhat tangential to the idea of changing the world.  Their core message was "we're not IBM."  In the talk, Jobs mentions this shouldn't be their core message, but clearly it was.  The 1984 ad reinforced this, and even the 1997 Think Different ad retrenched this ground by riffing off of IBM's motto.<p>[3] Edit: The idea that Apple's core customer is someone who "values their time" and is not a computer geek is meaninglessly broad.  Every customer values his or her time, and in any mainstream industry, the vast majority of customers are not computer geeks.<p>[4] Edit: Was it the success of the iPod that made Apple hip, or was the perception of the iPod being hip part of what made it such a success?  Clearly it did become a fashion accessory.  The product's clean design was congruent with this message.