It was 1998. “My Heart Will Go On” blared over the radio, a White House scandal revealed President Bill Clinton’s affinity for chubby interns, and Americans watched in awe as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa battled it out in MLB’s “who can take more steroids” cage match.

The millennium was approaching fast, and aside from a few diehard computer geeks, nobody cared about Apple Inc.

A year earlier, Apple stock had hit a three-year low, and the company ousted CEO Gil Amelio. Steve Jobs was brought back in a last ditch effort to save the company. With Microsoft preparing the killing blow, he had his work cut out for him.

In May of 1998, the Department of Justice filed anti-trust allegations against Microsoft, but Apple wasn’t off the hook. In June, Microsoft released Windows 98.

It should have been over for Apple. The company’s brand identity was weak, the differentiation from a PC being the lack of compatibility. Windows 95 and Microsoft Office were already the products of choice. Watch this ad to see just how bad it was. Apple couldn’t figure out how to sell computers on their own so they even tried the PC formula.

Then, in August, Job’s revitalized Apple shocked the computer industry and started the company down a path of unimaginable profitability.
Meet the IMac.

Within five months, Apple had sold almost 800,000 IMacs, and the company returned to sustained profitability for the first time since 1993.

Fundamentally, the IMac was no different than the Power Macintosh G3. The “All In One” concept wasn’t new either, Apple had been doing it since 1984. Take a look at this old Performa 5200.

The IMac even made sacrifices in functionality compared to its predecessors in the name of “coolness.” The hockey puck mouse was a miserable design and in my opinion one of the worst ergonomic disasters of all time, but it according to sales numbers, it didn’t matter.

It would take a few years for Apple to finish their transformation by upgrading their product line, releasing new software, and opening Apple stores. The IPod (which is such a strong brand in itself that people often refer to MP3 players as IPods) would eventually revolutionize the music industry, and the IPhone is currently in the process of reshaping the cellular market. The brand however, changed over night.

The company’s “Think Different” slogan suddenly made sense. Different meant a cool design with translucent blue plastic, and a fun attitude. Even though computers were mainstream consumer products, they had no mainstream appeal. They were tools, and their inner workings were foreign to the average consumer. The IMac was like a celebrity wearing a designer suit in a room full of construction workers. Apple suddenly stood out in a good way.

So what are simple things you can you make your brand stronger? How can you take a weakness and turn it into strength? Look at all of your competitors and think about market perception. What does each product look like? What are they all called? What kind of emotions do they invoke? What do they cost?

Stay tuned for the next post. I’ll discuss the IPod, Apple’s pricing and demographics, and how you can tweak your brand identity to better reflect your strengths.