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Apple's ads are powerful in part because they all reinforce the same branding message. Apple prides itself on appealing to the discerning customer, the person who, as one slogan famously had it, thought differently. And that message-of creativity, counterculture and good taste-is one that Apple has portrayed consistently in its advertising for the past 30 years.

"The tone, the design, the headlines-they all work toward that same message," Adamson says.