Steve Jobs, TBWA and Lee Clow: thinking different together

“As you all know by now, yesterday we lost Steve Jobs. He was the most amazing person I have ever known. He was a genius. He was an innovator. He was the best client we ever had. He was my friend. To work with him, to share his vision, to share his passion, to be trusted by him with his ideas, is one of the great honors that we all have been able to share. We who worked with him every day will miss him. We who worked for him but never met him will miss him. We who work for TBWA but never worked on Apple will miss him. What Steve Jobs did was simply make everything and everyone better. I will miss him. Lee” That’s the content of the internal memo sent by Lee Clow, Chairman and Global Director of TBWA\Worldwide, to his colleagues. There is so much that has been written and said about the genius that was Steve Jobs and about the brands that he built, but, forgotten, is the ‘partner’ that Jobs and Apple had in their brand building – TBWA and their creative director, Lee Clow. Jobs, Apple, Clow and TBWA came together to create the iconic 1984 TVC, and, a few years later, to unleash to the world the commercial everyone loves and remembers, ‘Think Different’. While the TV ads are remembered, it was, perhaps, the print ‘brochure’ in Newsweek magazine that translated, for consumers, how simple the Mac was when compared to the PC, and how, truly, Apple thought different. [caption id=“attachment_101590” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“A lot has been written and said about the genius that was Steve Jobs and about the brands that he built, but, forgotten, is the ‘partner’ that Jobs and Apple had in their brand building – TBWA and their creative director, Lee Clow.”] [/caption] Here’s the cover of the pull-out in Newsweek. toastbucket has uploaded the entire supplement for the benefit for all who want to view it. “In the Fall of 1984 Apple published a 16-page (with fold-out) advertising insert in Newsweek magazine. For many, this was the first “up-close” experience with a Macintosh — detailing the radical features of this new computer. The Macintosh was obviously evolving during the production of this insert as applications, icons and even hardware change from one photo to the next (and are often different from what actually made it to the shipping product). Also, in stark contrast to more recent advertising, this brochure actually makes direct comparisons to the competition with ample text to go along with the pictures. In addition to the full-page scans of the brochure below, you’ll also find larger detail images of certain areas — screenshots, people and hardware that benefit from a closer look. Enjoy!,” says toastbucket. You can view this stellar piece of communication here. Lee Clow and TBWA worked with Jobs, shared his vision, shared his passion and was trusted by him with his ideas. We’ll never know how much of a role TBWA and Clow played in the creation of the iconic brand, but the fact that TBWA and Apple worked together since 1984 suggests that, at least as far as Jobs was concerned, it was significant.