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Tuesday, 28 July 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Hiyal Biyagamage
Ken Segall, one of the key creative minds who steered Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign in 1997, was here in Sri Lanka for a series of events. Segall also takes the honour of naming the Apple Mackintosh’s 1998 desktop version as ‘iMac’.
As part of many initiatives organised by the Sri Lanka Association of Software and Service Companies (SLASSCOM), the key promoter of Sri Lanka’s IT/BPM sector, Segall addressed several undergraduate students and academic heads at the Virtusa
Auditorium. He shared some interesting stories of Steve Jobs, how Jobs voiced the iconic ‘Think Different’ commercial, naming of the ‘iMac’ and the impact of being simplistic in everything you do.
Days with Steve Jobs
“I worked with Apple and Steve back in 1997 for about four-and-a-half years but then I also worked with him for eight years on NeXT, the company he founded after he was forced out of Apple,” started Segall. “So I got to see the Steve who was not successful and the Steve who was super successful. But, he was the same guy. I have seen the raw edges and polished presentation skills of the man. It was an amazing experience.”
“I cannot say it was a pleasure to work with him – he was what he was – when you look back, he never traded his experiences for anything. He was Steve Jobs and he was the smartest person I have ever met,” said Segall.
Segall has also worked with companies like Intel, Dell, IBM and BMW. He mentioned that those companies certainly taught him about problems of complexity. “After working with them, I realised how easy it was to work with Apple. They took so much time, spent vast amounts, numerous testing and it went on and on which made us bored as advertisers. It was not the case for Apple. It was faster and cheaper. Fewer people worked on it and they had responsibilities. Importantly, Apple only hired the best people and if Steve was not happy with them; he would have fired them all.”
When Steve joined Apple again in 1997, the company was on the verge of going bankrupt. Even the famous tech magazine Wired did a cover which had the Apple logo entangled in a barbed wire with the caption ‘Pray.’ However, Steve did a revolution of his own and made Apple the most valuable company on earth in just 14 years. Segall said Steve’s dedication and devotion towards bringing simplicity to Apple changed the game.
“The reason simplicity is a good thing is that the world is complicated. When you do something simple, it stands out better in this complex world. That is the principle you see in Apple’s products. If Apple creates a remote controller, they would never device something with 20 buttons. Apple knows how to distil thinking into its essence and that is why they have been successful,” Segall said to the audience.
‘Think Different’ campaign
Steve Jobs was fired from Apple unceremoniously in May 1985 by then CEO John Sculley and by 1997, Apple was nearly bankrupt. Jobs thus negotiated Apple’s purchase of NeXT (the NeXTSTEP platform would become the foundation for Mac OS X) which would allow him to return as the company’s interim CEO. He eventually became Apple’s CEO and brought Apple’s fame back on track.
“We launched ‘Think Different’ campaign when Steve came back in 1997. There were no new computers for six months; iMac was first computer to be launched. The whole world was looking at Steve what he was going to do. Steve wanted us to create a campaign that would tell the world Apple is alive and well. The line ‘Think Different’ came up and to me, it was a great two-word line which really captured the spirit of Apple and discussed the simplicity of their process. Steve Wozniack and Steve Jobs created the first Apple computer out of a garage and it suddenly hit the market as a friendly home computer when the market was filled with monolithic, enterprise computers. ‘Think Different’ is still applicable to Apple today if you look at what they are doing now with Apple Watch or iPhone 6 because it still captures the essence,” said Segall.
The commercial Segall directed for Apple didn’t talk about Apple computers at all but it showed different people who changed the world with their ideas. Segall said that Steve was heavily involved in the development of this commercial as a good client. He dismissed the rumour that the words of this commercial were written by Jobs but he did the voiceover for the commercial. Segall said that Jobs believed these words and he was the perfect man for the task.
“First he didn’t agree because Steve thought that people would think of him as an egomaniac. But he anyhow agreed to do this and he only gave us one chance to record his voice. He did a really good job on the first attempt. After the take, he shouted at us saying 
that he has no time for another take and this whole plan would not work,” Segall laughed. “His voice gave that distinctive prominence to the commercial and after he passed way, it became something like a cult classic for all the Apple fans in the world.”
The commercial reads, “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. And 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.”
“These two words were really authentic. I have been hired by many companies to conduct brand campaigns. We spent weeks trying to figure out what they want to be and after signing an agreement; we go ahead and do the commercials and press ads. We didn’t do it with Steve and he hated anything which sounded advertising. He wanted to communicate to people which didn’t sound like he was trying to sell something. ‘Think Different’ was something believable,” Segall said.
Christening of the egg-shaped desktop PC
He also talked about his other well-known campaign which involved in naming the Apple Mackintosh G3, the revolutionary desktop computer. Segall told the audience that it is his ‘big selling thing, my moment of glory.’ Segall opined the ‘i’ became a foundational element for Apple afterwards, even though Steve Jobs didn’t think it was not something condescending when Segall first proposed it to him.
“Apple wasn’t making any hand-held devices at the time so we had no idea future would unfold as it is. I’d like to say that we weren’t geniuses to know that this would become a big deal for apple but what we were trying to do at that time was to come up with a simple thing. After the iMac, world went ‘i’ crazy because at that time; computers were beige and boxy and boring. iMac turned the computer world upside down with its unique design.”
“Steve wanted a name for this and asked me to come up with names. I created five names where I kept iMac as the last one because I thought it would be the clear winner. It was so simple and subtle. Steve hated the first four and he hated iMac as well. I didn’t give up though because we truly believed in iMac. Steve gave another week to work on. I gave three brand new names which he disliked. I pulled up the iMac again but this time Steve said, ‘I don’t hate it this week but I still don’t like it’”, Segall said.
However, Segall said they were able to convince Jobs to use ‘iMac’ and he joked that it was a historic moment of convincing to use ‘iMac’ rather than ‘RocketMac’.
“It was kind of a non-ending and we had no moment of glory or an e-mail of appreciation. It was great to think that Steve believed in that. I believe he liked the small ‘i’ and big ‘M’ and it was very short. He had that thing about simplicity. We had the perseverance and we believed our idea and brought it back. Had we not persevered; you could very well be sitting here with ‘PhoneMan’ or ‘PodMan’ or something like that. Luckily, the ‘i’ lived.”
He described Steve’s work as seeing simplicity through a camera lens. He said through his naked eye he saw a wheel spinning inside Job’s head, determining the best communication methods that would reach Apple’s message to consumers. There was a level of quality he assessed different elements, may it be production, engineering or communication, Segall said.
“When iPhone was launched, the world was filled with these monoliths making billion of phones and they functioned the same way; lots of buttons you know. Apple thought about that and developed something very simple with a single button. You didn’t think of a manual to see how it functions because everything was self-explanatory. Steve jobs believed that simplicity could move mountains and it was his ultimate weapon to be competitive.”
Championing simplicity
People need to champion the element of simplicity and when you become simple, people around you would automatically transform into people who loathes complexity, Segall said.
“If you obey simplicity, it increases your value. People would see that aura of power around you and that encourages and influences other people around you to be simple and think simple. Steve Jobs was the CEO but his employees understood what he wanted. He knew the plus and minus points of standards which his employees presented. He encouraged them to be simple in every aspect.”
Segall doesn’t believe that guidelines and rules have a say in the transformation process of complex companies to simple. Companies need to believe in simplicity to create something simple. Apple had no organisational boundaries nor they drew lines in what they did and that is why Steve Jobs always said that Apple is the biggest startup in the world, Segall said.
“When Steve was at Apple, there were no committees or organisation hierarchies to decide what to do and what not do. He hired smart people and gave them responsibilities. If they didn’t complete the given challenge in a way that Steve expected it to be; they had to do it again. Responsibility drove Apple employees to achieve perfectness and they were not controlled by any rules or guidelines. You can’t keep ideas in a pure state if those ideas being tossed between too many people.”
He mentioned that he has not seen companies in the recent past who have tried to touch what Apple did with simplicity. He believes that these companies do not have a system like Apple where they had no committee to decide what people need to do.
“I have seen good individual campaigns which were aimed at promoting one product but no other company has come up to Apple’s level of communicating the whole idea of how an organisation drives forward. Google did a good job for Google Search but let me tell you this. Without showing a human being, you can be very human in advertising. You don’t have to show happy people or loving couples to create a certain emotional element but you can be simple-minded and gather simple human moments to create a better campaign. That’s what Apple did in 1997 and that is what organisations lack now.”
Look back and connect the dots
He mentioned Steve Job’s iconic speech which he delivered for Stamford graduates. He talked about how he had asked the graduates to look backwards to connect the dots.
“It was a standard speech where he basically said to follow your passion. But he made the point that you can only connect the dots when you look backwards. You cannot connect them by looking forward. My advice for Sri Lanka students would be the same. I was a musician and I played drums. I was also the lyricist of my band. When I realised that I wasn’t going to be a superstar, I got into advertising. I didn’t plan any of these things. It happened only because I just did what I believed in. My advice for you is not to be a typecast in any industry you represent but follow your passion and live up to that. Salary is not the thing always. Work at a good place, work with good clients and it will build up your resume,” opined Segall.
