It is not only in wine (“in vino veritas”) that there is sometimes a grain of truth. Even in advertising (“vendo” in Latin) there is sometimes an important kernel of truth that is worth thinking about more closely.
In vendo veritas - This is particularly evident in corporate image campaigns, which are not primarily designed to advertise a specific product. Instead, these advertisements seek to associate the company name with ideas and concepts that are important to the company. It is precisely these fundamental concepts that I am targeting with the statement "in vendo veritas." These concepts can often conceal intriguing perspectives that are worthy of consideration.
The most exciting thing about this is that advertising aims to communicate a single core idea in a clear and easy-to-understand way in just a few seconds. In successful advertising, a conceptual idea is presented at a glance in a way that everyone can understand and comprehend. The specific company that created the advertisement is irrelevant; what matters is the successful presentation of the core idea.
In the context of deep thought, one of the key questions easily posed is: If "all of science" is of the opinion, that a certain perspective is correct, is it worthwhile to challenge this majority opinion? Frankly, since roughly the middle of the last century science has failed to come up with any major new theories that convincingly explains previously not well understood important phenomena and gains general accceptance. Instead, fundamental unexplained gaps in theories are just accepted, because "the theory works very well 'here' and 'there', why change it?". Even more often enough, new ideas are countered with the argument that the majority cannot be wrong and that the dissenting individual opinion is therefore certainly absurd. But this is precisely wrong.
There is an outstanding example of an image advertisement that picks up on this theme and thus contains a true core - in vendo veritas. This advertisement vividly illustrates Thomas Kuhn's idea that every scientific revolution - or, as Kuhn calls it, a paradigm shift - begins with the idea of a single person. This single person dares to go against the majority, and in the end the new view prevails. For the company whose advertising campaign I am alluding to, the aim at the time was to communicate to its loyal old customers and potential new customers that it takes courage, but that it is also right to go against the prevailing mass trend with new ideas. That it's okay to be different, that it's okay to buy a different product from everyone else. Because that was exactly what the company needed to survive at the time.
The example we are talking about here is Apple's “Think different” campaign from 1997. This year was a turning point for Apple. It was the year in which Steve Jobs returned as CEO after more than ten years away from Apple. The Apple of that time was a company that was the subject of bankruptcy and takeover rumors. In competition with the Microsoft/Intel duopoly of the time, few believed Apple could survive.
The global market share for Macintosh computers had fallen to a homeopathic 2-3%. It was so small that Apple was rightly concerned that even the small group of remaining customers and software developers who had remained loyal to Apple until then would lose faith in Apple's future. Without customers, there would be no revenue to keep the company going and without software developers, there would be no attractive programs to use Apple computers. In this situation, the most important thing was not to advertise a new product. Instead, the most important thing was to convince customers that Apple had a future. Because computers are not a chocolate bar that you buy spontaneously in the supermarket. Computers are investments. No matter who the customer is: They will only invest in a product if they believe in the future of the product and the company behind it. In 1997, this belief in Apple was lost. Only the “crazy ones” still believed that Apple would make it. Three things were necessary to restore the faith of everyone else:
- to ensure through internal measures and focus that Apple had enough liquidity to achieve this future;
- to persuade highly visible, relevant third parties to believe in the future of Apple;
- to use an image campaign to tell the world that it is perfectly okay to be different from everyone else, that every revolution started with just such a single different person - someone who dares to “think different”.
The first point initially made some of the remaining loyal customers less than happy. Apple's market share was too small to finance the large number of development activities running in parallel at the time from the contribution margins it generated. From this perspective, it was only logical for Apple to discontinue the development of the Apple Newton as a handheld device and other of its own computer peripheral products (e.g. printers) at that time.
The second point was that Steve Jobs succeeded in persuading the founder and then CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, to take two decisive steps: Firstly, Microsoft invested directly in its competitor Apple. Although the investment of 100 million was not particularly high, it was high enough to convince the markets that even the main competitor believed in Apple's survival and had an interest in it. Microsoft's second step was to ensure that Microsoft Office files created with macOS or Windows were once again compatible and interchangeable. This had not been the case since Microsoft introduced Windows95 and a new MS Office version in 1995. The renewed compatibility did not work perfectly, but was so good that files could be exchanged with little additional effort. This meant that the small market share of Macintosh computers, at least in terms of the very important office applications, lost some of its sting and significance. Investing in an Apple computer therefore no longer led to exclusion from the rest of the market, at least in this critical area of office software.
The third point was the “Think different” image campaign, the core message of which has lost none of its relevance to this day. This one-minute commercial consists almost exclusively of historical footage of famous personalities. These personalities all have one thing in common: they went against the mainstream and in the end managed to convince everyone else of their point of view. They all managed to change the world. The commercial begins with an iconic shot of Albert Einstein and shows images of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Maria Callas, Thomas Edison, Alfred Hitchcock and, lastly, Pablo Picasso as he appears to be painting in the air. The whole thing is underpinned in the original English version by the sonorous voice of Richard Dreyfuss, who addresses the "Crazy Ones", the dissenters, with his text. Because no matter how the majority feels about them, the majority cannot ignore these individuals and their opinions. Because it is these individuals who manage to convince the majority of their opinion and thus ultimately advance humanity. The commercial ends with the words “think different”. The Apple logo is only shown in the last three seconds. For those who do not recognize this logo (a relevant question at that time), the entire commercial is solely a hymn to those who think differently.
In vendo veritas.
What does “think different” mean to us? The core message of the commercial describes quite aptly the motivation behind why we deal with the world's big and small puzzles and take unusual paths in the search for solutions. We present opinions that challenge the status quo. We try to justify them objectively and plausibly. The mere fact that we take a different view from the mainstream of science in the areas we address is not sufficient reason or proof that our approaches are wrong.
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