And launch of the "Think Different" campaign.

This captures beautifully what fills me with fear and loathing for people who invest their lives in marketing. Fucking Ghandi, brought to you by Apple? It makes me sick to my stomach, the gall of it. John Lennon, for fuck's sakes. Have you no shame?

And yet I know how many clever, intelligent, morally bewildering people spend their lives trying to make me feel something for companies, and probably succeed against my best intentions.

It's funny you should pick out Gandhi and Lennon. Steve Jobs took an influential trip to India in 1974 (one which affected his life outlook in lots of ways, and one for which Gandhi, I would imagine, serves as an emblematic figure), and he was a big fan of The Beatles, both musically and organizationally: "My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts."

I totally dig your point, generally applied; lots of ads strike me as disingenuous and (emotionally) opportunistic. I like this particular ad, though. To me it comes off, at least in part, as more of a personal (and genuine) homage to some of the people who inspired Steve Jobs at various points in his life.>> ^kymbos:

This captures beautifully what fills me with fear and loathing for people who invest their lives in marketing. Fucking Ghandi, brought to you by Apple? It makes me sick to my stomach, the gall of it. John Lennon, for fuck's sakes. Have you no shame?
And yet I know how many clever, intelligent, morally bewildering people spend their lives trying to make me feel something for companies, and probably succeed against my best intentions.

What's funny to me is that the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads are exactly the kind of "my air soles are better than yours" advertising that he bashes at the beginning.

eat acid, think different, like steve jobs

Ugh, I am in very great danger of speaking ill of the dead.

Interesting, @aurens.

Hey, I'm inspired by a number of great artists and thinkers. The Beatles are my all time favourite band, and I'd love to be in some way linked with the incredible art they produced. But to then associate a product I am selling with that art and their legacy is truly contemptible to me. You may not think of what you do as making and selling boxes, but you do sell a fucking box. You're not John fucking Lennon! That fact seems to be lost on marketers, who seem able to convince themselves that things are whatever names and attributes we give them. Truth is an illusion to them, where I think of it more as a goal.