Apple iPhone and Apple Watch: Tim Cook Says ‘Don’t Leave Home Without Them’

In the 1970s, Ogilvy and Mather coined a tagline for American Express that became one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time.

The “Don’t Leave Home Without Them” tagline not only became synonymous with American Express Travelers Cheques and its spokesman, actor Karl Malden, who was in the Zeitgeist with his hit police drama, “The Streets of San Francisco.”
The campaign’s focus was then switched to focus on the American Express Card, causing Malden to tell viewers, “Don’t Leave Home Without It.”

The sentiment of the tagline holds true for things we take for granted yet sometimes unintentionally leave behind, such as our keys or wallet or mobile phone and, in introducing the new iPhone 15 line of smartphones last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook hit on this sentiment as well, although he didn’t use the famous tagline.

“Let’s get to the big news of the day, about Apple Watch and iPhone,” Cook said, obviously enthralled with his new line of phones.  “Their innovative features and industry-leading technologies help improve our lives in so many meaningful and delightful ways. Apple Watch helps us stay healthy active and connected. And iPhone impacts just about everything we do.”

He continued: “They’re with us all the time, and if you left either one at home, I bet you’d go back and get it.”

Our smartphones – and the iPhone in particular – serve so many purposes for the user beyond the basic ability to place and receive calls that they are a kind of Swiss army knife.  You can’t (yet) cut a piece of rope with it or open a bottle, but you can do banking, go shopping, pay for things in shops, unlock your home, unlock and start your automobile, the list goes on and on.

We also document our lives by using the iPhone’s camera and, in spare moments, we play games or read the news.

The Apple Watch, meanwhile, which was designed as an extension of the iPhone, not as a standalone device, allows us to have to fiddle with the iPhone less.  I can respond to messages, send new messages and e-mails, and get and follow directions, and just like with the iPhone, unlock my home or pay for purchases in shops.

The iPhone and to a great extent the Apple Watch have become indispensable and the American Express tagline rings true here.  People used to return home to retrieve their forgotten wallets and I’m sure many do run back for their iPhones now.

However, as long as I had my Apple Watch on my wrist, and it’s much harder to forget because picking it up from its bedside charger and placing it on my wrist is a ritual I repeat every morning, I would not necessarily feel the urge to return home should I forget my iPhone or even my wallet, the latter which hardly sees much use these days.  When it’s not on my wrist, it just feels odd to me.

It’s really a pity Apple didn’t seek to more closely ape the famous tagline or even attempt to license it (has the copyright run out yet, perhaps?).  But for me, it’s “Apple Watch: I Never Leave Home Without It.”

[Editor’s Note: American Express stopped selling Travelers Cheques in December 2020.]

(Photo: Accura Media Group)