Gadgetory

so can you worked with apple on some of its most high-profile campaigns and at a time when the company was still very much an underdog tell us how that got started how did that relationship with Apple begin I got the opportunity to work on Apple in the days of John Sculley and then a few years later when Steve Jobs needed a creative director at his ad agency to handle next I was a candidate for the job simply because I had the Apple experience you know and I always stress to people that we didn't know that Apple could possibly succeed in those days it was near bankruptcy you loved Steve Jobs and had faith in him all that kind of stuff but you didn't know like I didn't invest my own money in Apple people asked me why I didn't today because I could have been wealthy the whole thing worked out in such an interesting way the first thing we did was the think different campaign and we did that really just on faith Steve said great things are coming we didn't know what anything was going to look like or how it was going to function it was the success of iMac that really I think turned all of our heads because it became the best-selling computer like an Apple history really so you have been credited as the person who came up with the name iMac tell us how that happened Steve had a name in his head for the iMac that made us all shudder when we heard it he thought that math man would be a good name and it made us all scratch our heads and say why really it's a pretty terrible name he just liked it he couldn't really explain it but he did what he often did which was I challenge you do something better so the concept of that first computer was that it was the easy way to the internet so I for internet Mac for Macintosh seemed rather obvious to me so Ken you're the author of a new book think simple which is all about simplicity in advertising and in all walks of life really taking Apple today do you think it's managed to maintain that focus on simplicity or if things changed I think if you listen to Tim Cook or Johnny I've today simplicity is all we is part of the conversation but I think one has to be objective if even if you're a fanboy such as myself all is not totally well in the world of Apple and I don't mean that to be so alarming as a lot of people you know feel today the values are there but I think there is are there some there are some issues in the execution it's a quality control thing I supposed I think people fall in love with Apple products because they've been simple and reliable and beautifully designed all that stuff so once you start pulling back on any of those features you won't be creating the the love and that is essential to Apple success looking at the tech world today and the way that tech companies are advertising can you think of any particularly good examples that you've seen of particularly effective campaigns or all the opposite any particularly bad efforts using it's a tough question because I don't see any tech company that I look at and say you know I love everything they do there they're like pieces that they do Samsung is a very good example when they came out with their anti Apple phone stuff of that people waiting in lines at the you know for the Apple Store I thought those were actually fabulous and they did to Apple exactly what Apple did to Microsoft and the PC world in their old ads that had the max versus of the PCs but Samsung although they accomplished that with that campaign they have done some of the most horrifying ads I've ever seen so consistency is a very very important thing and Apple has been pretty darn consistent doing high-level good quality advertising Kent Siegel thank you very much for your time my pleasure thanks