Hours after Apple announced Steve Jobs’ death on Wednesday, fans clamored to Apple stores around the world to mourn one of America's all-time CEOs.
Hailed as a visionary, Jobs was known as much for his innovative products as for his ability to connect them to consumers. Apple fans would wait in anticipation for a new product and they were known to skip class and work to watch him unveil iPods, iPhones and iPads in his trademark black turtleneck and jeans.
But despite his marketing genius, Jobs was skeptical of typical ad campaigns. He introduced the company to consumers in the 1970s using ads that featured slogans like “A is for Apple” or photos a picture of a naked man holding an Apple computer. The ads evolved to campaigns in the 1980s that referenced acclaimed inventors like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.
And despite being forced out of the company in 1985 and not returning for 11 years, his creativity continued to have a lasting effect on all things Apple.
Some of the most recognizable recent television ads also belong to Jobs’ Apple. During the first decade of this century Apple introduced ads for the iPod that featured silhouettes dancing to in front of colorful backgrounds and iPhone campaigns that showcased both the device’s features and the myriad of apps available.
Though many of the campaigns were wildly successful, Jobs told Playboy Magazine in 1985, that ad campaigns were only necessary because of competition.
“IBM's ads are everywhere,” he said in the interview. “But good PR educates people; that's all it is. You can't con people in this business. The products speak for themselves."
And Jobs’ passion for his products -- he threw out two iPhone prototypes before signing off on the product in 2007, according to The New York Times -- could often be enough to convince consumers that his devices were essential to the way they lived.
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups,” Jobs told Businessweek in a 1998 interview. “A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
Here are some of Apple's top ad campaigns:
