The quality that made Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant The Athletic Bay Area’s 2017 Persons of the Year is easily found through the prism of the region’s past, in the archives of Silicon Valley’s most successful company.



In 1997, prior to the introduction of the iMac and the iPod, Apple was struggling. Before the company could rely on the arrival of new products, it needed a new image. A collaboration with the advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day produced a groundbreaking marketing campaign featuring black-and-white images of iconic individuals such as Nelson Mandela, Pablo Picasso and Muhammad Ali.



The tag line: “Think Different.”



The best ad campaigns do more than capture a corporate philosophy, they encourage the consumer to live by that ethos, as well. (Consider Nike’s “Just Do It.”)



Curry and Durant think differently than the fans and media — maybe even differently than their NBA brethren —...