Detail from the 1990s Think Different poster featuring Jane Goodall – image credit: Apple
Jane Goodall is the lead voice of a new Mac ad campaign that celebrates creativity and harkens back to the famous Think Different campaign she helped create.
The admired and beloved primatologist died on October 1, 2025, six months after her appearance on the Apple TV series “Jane.” That children’s show, based on her life, ran for three years and was one of countless television series, films and books inspired by her.
Now she is the voice of ‘Great Ideas Start on Mac’. It’s the first of a new campaign that celebrates how, in Apple’s words, “from groundbreaking discoveries to award-winning films, it all starts from scratch.”
The minute-long ad consists of a slow push across a room toward the flashing cursor on a MacBook. It’s not clear whether it’s a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air, but there’s noticeably no visible notch on the screen.
As a result, the MacBook, along with its position on a cluttered desk, seems to set the stage for real work and real creativity.
“Every story you love. Every invention that touches you,” Goodall says in the ad. “Every idea you wished was yours.”
“It all started as nothing,” she continues, “just a flicker on a screen with a simple question: ‘What do you see?’”
Once the MacBook’s cursor is set, blinking in time to a heartbeat, the ad shows Macs used by various artists and scientists. According to Advertising age, that include ocean engineer Bruce Strickrott and Alice Wong of the Disability Visibility Project.
The ad is directed by Mike Mills and features music composed by Emile Mosseri. Again, Apple doesn’t mention who wrote it, which is a bit of a blow for a campaign about creativity, especially considering the way Tor Myhren, Apple’s vice president of marketing communications, describes it.
“This campaign celebrates the most difficult and mysterious part of a great idea: its origins: how something is created from nothing, from a blank canvas,” he said. Advertising age. “It’s remarkable how many of the world’s best ideas started on a Mac.”
“This work is a tribute to these ideas, and to everyone who tries to create more of them,” he continued.
The ad, which first debuted on YouTube, is part of a campaign that will run across television, all social media, as well as outdoor billboards.
Jane Goodall and Apple
This new campaign is reminiscent, at least in spirit, of Apple’s marketing from the 1990s. The most famous part of this is the 90-second ‘Think Different’ advertisement, narrated by Richard Dreyfuss. It was written by Rob Siltanen and Ken Segall.
But in addition, there was a whole poster campaign that followed the same format depicting people admiring Steve Jobs and Apple’s senior staff. One of those posters was of Jane Goodall, and in his tribute Segall told her how Apple chose her – and how she gave her permission.
“Steve [Jobs] was truly honored that Jane had agreed to the use of her likeness,” Segall writes. “The campaign was close to his heart and he greatly admired Jane’s lifelong work.”
“[We] did not offer cash to any of the ‘Think different’ people,” he continues. “Instead, Steve donated large numbers of Apple computers to charities and organizations designated by the participants, or to their estates.”
That ‘Think Different’ campaign was created by Chiat/Day, the PR company that Apple also used for the famous ‘1984’ ad. In 2006, people from that company formed what eventually became TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the company that created the new campaign.
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