A brand is not a brand unless it commands a premium. To Steve Jobs, Apple Computer's original visionary, a brand is not a brand unless it defies categorisation, the box into which the orthodoxy would have it put. So when Apple loyalists recently saw a 20-year-old TV commercial featuring an athlete digitally enhanced to wield its handy new gizmo, the iPod, they cheered the 'knowing' cheer. New tool. Same values. Same brand. The brand for 'the crazy ones', the ones who actually 'Think Different'.

In the late 1970s, Jobs' original tool was a granny-friendly 'personal computer' designed for "the rest of us". Through such homebody empowerment, it sparked a revolution that went on in the 1980s to overthrow the centralised era of mainframes. The 1990s saw the commoditisation of Wintel-clone computers, and Apple lost both Jobs and its way-till 1997, when he found himself adrenalised by a new challenge, and back in the hot seat.

Jobs lost no time in transforming brand deference into brand difference, and giving Apple back its originality. The fabulous iMac computers got hearts skipping beats, even as Einstein, Lennon and Gandhi found themselves part of fresh rallying call to creative action. In the interlude, Jobs had been a filmmaker in la-la-land, and was now clear that he would play the new game only in the "intersection of art and science".

Wasn't that business suicide? He couldn't care less; he'd made a fortune on one crazy bet after another-and he'd demonstrated a daring willingness to lose it all for the brand's values. Wall Street could laugh all it wanted, but he had the nerve to stay true to Apple's unique relationship with its loyalist.

And Apple remains Apple, a brand wowing onlookers with its success in the arena of digitised music. Its 2001-launched iPod device for downloaded internet music is the result of aligning the music industry's intellectual property interests with his creative vision, and is being hailed as the coolest thing since the Sony Walkman. Its 2003-launched music shop, iTunes, is rocking the Net legally, even as its latest software arouses the imagination in fresh ways. It's all happening, y'know. And what about that big boxed image? Brittle.