1998.
Macs were expensive.
Windows was catching up.
Sales were falling.
And Apple's stock was trading at just $5 on the NASDAQ.

Steve Jobs came back. And one of the first things he did was to appoint Chiat Day Los Angeles, the agency responsible for the legendary “1984” commercial which ran just once at the 1984 Super Bowl and went on to become one of the most famous pieces of advertising in the history of the business.

Chiat Day had recently been acquired by TBWA, a worldwide agency network belonging to the Omnicom Group. And I was responsible for new business acquisition and for managing clients across the global network.

My job was to move the US work across the world and to satisfy Steve Jobs, who was closely involved in all advertising decisions, that his brand would not be compromised within the confines of a large global agency.

I broke all the rules by establishing centres of excellence in key creative centres around the world - in Amsterdam, Singapore and Tokyo. This allowed us to keep a close eye on quality, with short reporting lines back to Steve Jobs, whilst getting the global spread that Apple needed.

The global relaunch was highly successful.

And “Think Different” has taken it’s place alongside “1984” as one of the legendary pieces of work in the history of advertising.

The stock peaked at $210 last September.
That is after a number of stock splits.