It’s weak and shows a lock of personal creative drive within the company to think differently on their own. By riding on the accomplishments of others, Apple fails to create it’s own personality.

Apple has done that to some degree, but really this is no more than a Coca-Cola sponsorship moment. I refuse to watch tv because the advertising is so blatant, anyone who isn’t strongly aware or annoyed by it is brain dead.

The letter M, brought to you today by Monsanto, and the letter R by Rosa Parks and Apple. You associate the two and it combines and enhances Apple. If apple REALLY wanted to do a tribute, they’d contribute to a civil rights organization workingon one, or anonymously.

This is like any politician that shows up at the end to cut the ribbon on someone else’s hard work. It’s lame.

– http://www.helenius.dk/pictures/apple_tsunami.jpg

Yes, because businesses can’t be nice, noble or sweet.

I guess beer companies should stop delivering millions of gallons of clean, potable water during floods and hurricanes or advertise the Red Cross logo on their websites because they are just advertising to thirsty victims.

Sheesh.

Apple developed a campaign called “Think Different” in 1997. The Rosa Parks ad debutted in 1998. I don’t see anything wrong with them featuring her on their website or linking to a bio of her contributions to the world.

If Apple had a Rosa Parks Special Edition iPod and the ad linked to that product, then yes, I would be in agreement that it would be crass commercialism.

The argument that Apple resurrected a 6 old campaign just to sell products is a facetious one. If they were still interested in the ad campaign, it would still be running now. Apple is a much more recognizable name than Rosa Parks, Theodore Roosevelt, Alexander the Great, Lord Nelson, Yi Sun Shin, William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson and other historical figures who have changed the face of history. Btw, William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson led the campaign to abolish slavery in Britain and succeeded in 1833 fyi.

If you had remembered the whole point of the ad, it was a tribute to all the rebels, geniuses, misfits, outcasts who changed the world.

Apple has also changed the world. You would not be using a personal computer if it were not for Apple. Nor would you be doing so from a gui.

Personal computers have changed every facet of society; art, science, technology, medicine, exploration, communication, etc.

How many millions of people have been saved by personal computers?

So let’s not delude ourselves. Rosa Parks was a great person because she was courageous and was at the right place at the right time.

She made the first move. But she called on her pastor, a certain Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., for help. He was the one that started the Civil Rights movement.

More power to Apple for doing such tributes. No other company seemed to care that she died. No other company had the guts to do so.

Think Different.

– http://writersblocklive.com/?p=10

I had a quiet morning when my clock went off that morning earlier this week and I heard on NPR that Rosa Parks had died. While it will be argued if her acts were what started the civil rights movement, or rather if she were the catalyst for the explosion of those things that were already happening and in place, no one doubts how huge an impact she did have on our world, and I wish we had done more than we have done in her lifetime to improve the social reality for minority groups than we have.

Personally, I think it is possible while a figure is living to connect them to a marketting campaign if they are amenable. Similarly it’s also fine to do the same to someone long dead, as they become more of a historical figure.

However, while a tribute from Apple (especially given their prior relationship) to Rosa Parks would have been perfectly reasonable (hell, admirable … it annoys me when companies try to pretend not to be political and socially involved in their society) the connection of the marketting campaign to her now, just after her death, cheapens not Rosa Parks, but rather any sincerity that Apple may have in the tribute.

When does the passing of a highly influential person be far enough in the past that it is okay that we can use their memory? I don’t know, and won’t pretend to, but it is certainly the case, given the (over)use of Einstein’s mugshot. But only a day or two after their death? I think it is easily safe enough to say that that wouldn’t be.

Apple is a company known, more renown, for being political, socially, ethically conscious (even from us rabid lefties). THIS isn’t the way to do this. A tribute should simply and emphatically be a tribute, without any thoughts of gain on one’s own part. That isn’t the case here, and Apple is lessened because of it.

At least that’s my 0.02