Imagine a world where Palm's commercials for the Pre were uncontroversial, effective, compelling, and well liked. A world where Palm followed up on the original "Flow" commercial with ads that established the Palm Pre as a brand to be reckoned with. Despite some focus group approval of their followup ad, that is not the world we live in. Instead, we live in a world where the Palm ads are 'creepy.'
Yes, Modernista! still backs their ads and yes, in our world they've got us talking about them ad nauseum. What about the world of Mad Men? Perhaps the professionals in the field have some Don Draper flashes of insight into what these are all about? According to the folks interviewed by ADWEEK, it's just as much a mystery to the pros as it is to us.
Let's peruse the reactions, shall we? After the break, their thoughts and mine.
- "I certainly don't enjoy watching them"
- "the messaging is questionable"
- "They lost me"
- "feels a little tone deaf and self-indulgent"
The killer comes from Robert Birge, CMO of Kayak and formerly of TBWA\Chiat\Day. He thinks that the ads don't built brand awareness for the Pre, but "for PDA devices in general." Ouch.
If they don't clearly express the Pre's functionality (despite some recent moves in that direction), then building the brand is basically all that's left. Brand building commercials are a good idea -- I personally think that Apple's commercials work more because of the feeling of lighthearted ease they evoke than any particular message. Palm's ads seem to try to evoke a feeling of mystical, fairy-world connections channeled through the Pre.
Any Tim Burton fan will tell you: The thing about mystical fairy worlds is that the line between whimsical wonder and horrible surreality is all too easily crossed and you never realize you've crossed it until it's too late. How is a creepy world good for Palm's brand?
Imagine a world where Palm's ads evoke serenity and connection instead of creeping you out. I bet you can't. Once you've crossed that line, you can't go back.
From where I'm sitting, there's no way to un-creep this campaign, just like you can't have the yellow brick road without flying monkees or Wonderland without the Queen of Hearts. From where I'm sitting, it's time to pull the plug on this campaign.
Thanks to Brian for the tip!
Comments
The ads don't bother me at all. They don't seem creepy to me. But people are talking about them, so it goes into the win column.
lets just ignore this commercial
Personally I happen to LIKE the Pre commercials. I find the girl to be quite sexy and sex sells. Ok maybe she does seem like a cross between the Borg queen and the underage girl on the banned cover of the Blind Faith lp. Whatever. I think she's hot and she definitely grabs my attention everytime one of her commercials comes on the air. Does she play in Peoria? I don't know. But I like her and that's good enough for me!
no way dude!!! that chick looks like she has no soul!! kinda like a droid of some sort .. she creeps me out every time i see those crappy lame commercials .... they need to get rid of her and get a cool hip person for those ads... because the pre is cool and hip...
They need Jerry Seinfeld.
Right, because tech corporations always do so well when they try to be hip and trendy :rolleyes:
It's clear to me that if Palm want any part of Apple's market, Palm needs to take them on head on. Do copy/paste, do video, get the app store up. I realize all this takes time and will probably eventually show up on the Pre but the sooner the better. The Pre not only needs to showcase its unique capabilities, but also the capabilities that everyone expects from the iPhone. TAKE'EM ON PALM! You've got the device to do it, you just need to get your @$$ in gear.
They don't creep me out, but they are weird. I also don't fully agree with Mr. Birge's view on the ad campaign. It definitely has caught tons of media attention but not the wanted type. They should scratch it and refocus. I'm still buying one though :D
Dieter, come on. This is so not worth the time. The ads aren't a big deal, and they are obviously backing them 100%. I actually think they're original, which is what the platform needs.
What we don't need is the #1 Pre site, and gatekeeper of the only (large) homebrew community, posting their biggest news story of the week about "stopping the ads". Post some good content, and more of it please. Don't waste our time with these big, effort-filled posts about the ad campaign when maybe we should be advocating more and more developers to jump to the platform. This is only scaring them away.
Come on now.
It seems to me that the producer of these commercials made them more to win artistic ad awards over selling product. I don't see how they inspire curiosity for the Pre.
I agree
agreed
OK, with her hair pulled back so tight the girl is vaguely asexual, and when you couple that with the fact that she talks without moving her lips and speaks in an NPR host's whisper she comes across like some kind of future human visiting the past.
Much more effective would be a comparison of the Pre's strengths. You could show a Pre user flipping cards between the phone, email and IM while an iPhone user watches over his shoulder. "What? Your phone doesn't do that?"
The one thing worse than this ad campaign is the incessant whining about this ad campaign. Seriously, let it go.
with so many good ad campaigns out there that invoke positive feelings by large majorities (not the barely 50% of this campaign) i just dont understand why you would settle for this.
the general public (not us tech geeks) need to be looking at these ads and either laugh or be blown away by features/coolness. these ads make me want to cry & cower. i can only think the general public's sentiment is not too far from mine. why because i still like watching iphone ads cause they are cool and show interesting apps. which is what everyone talks about when they buy or want to buy an iphone.
And Diets keep writing these posts. If you dont like them dont read them. And if I were a developer and saw the Pre ads and didn't like them well then that would incent me less to develop for this platform as I would feel that it would not pick up the mass following of other platforms. So that is one of many many reasons Palm needs to fix this campaign and Dieter needs to, hell is compelled to post on these ads.
le_sueus, You've Nailed IT!!! That's exactly the point; THESE ADs NEED TO BE DIRECTED AT THE GENERAL PUBLIC... not a selective, or the "free your mind & smoke on this" group.
PALM GET WITH IT!!! & Redirect the Ads Sooner than Later!
Although I am not sure if they have the financial ability to do this, Palm might be best served by several different ad campaigns. If you look at a company like Geico, they have the gecko, the cavemen, and the creepy bug-eyed money.
One idea would be to show REAL people actually USING the Pre in their REAL lives to help them with REAL issues. You could show a different person in each: Business person, Parent, College Student, etc. Each has unique needs. All share needs.
Help the audience understand WHY they should buy the Pre instead of a BlackBerry or iPhone. (HINT: Because the Pre does things the others cannot.)
What is it the iPhone cannot do? Multi-task? It absolutely can (and does) do this. The stock OS governs this functionality to ensure proper performance. The two have the same type processor, with the Pre being clocked slower than iPhone.
I have read about sluggish "WebOS" performance and stuttering screen transitions - likely due to multi-tasking. A good thing about Pre is that one can choose (out of the box) to what extent they multi-task.
All I ask of the iPhone is that I know when I am receiving a new call or SMS (or calendar reminder) while doing some other thing .. and the iPhone does this for me.
"Each has unique needs. All share needs."
the pre does not support unique need on very basic things. it is not even possible to configure my own search engine or get rid of the twitter search (without changing hard coded files of the webOS), I wont use.
Actually, in my opinion...the Sprint ads advertising for the Pre do a MUCH better job of getting the Pre's functionality message across. The 3D world with the human size Pre and the way cool 3D life-size version of the accuweather app does more for the Pre than Palm is doing.
Palm seriously needs to fire their advertising group on this one. Just because it has people talking doesn't mean that it is a good thing...especially when they are talking because they can't even figure out the message AT ALL!
Not comparing to the iPhone but I have a better sense of the capabilities of the iPhone when I watch an iPhone commercial...I understand the device. I understand that "there IS an app for that". With the Pre ads I'm left feeling like this thing is a goofy toy and I need to get an instinct or Touch Pro if I want to do serious work.
Palm has a winner of a device on its hands but no one knows it because the message is just plain LOST in the current advertising compaign. Roger and company can lie to themselves all they want...these ads are NOT effective. I, in fact, love the device but these commercials make me feel like a loser for having one. I should not have to feel embarrassed about a device I find incredibly useful and capable but I do because most people think its a joke due to the commercials.
I'm just glad they got rid of her voice in the latest set of commercials. Thank god for editing. Now we just have to see her creepy face briefly, then a normal voice, then creepy face, and the pre.
I'm in agreement pull the plug
everyone that sees the phone thinks its cool but they all are completely fascinated with the touchstone charging dock.... never once have I seen them show off the wireless charging... huge for me can't even count the numbers of broken chargers and charger ports and the problem is now eliminated.
We need a new ad campaign which actually speaks to the target audience and not the Palm/tech folk - THEY KNOW ABOUT THE PRE ALREADY!
We need an advertising campaign showing explicitly why this device was created and how this helps achieve this (help us in our busy lives) in an everyday setting whilst still being engaging, memorable and unambiguous.
With a few updates this would be a great way to start a new campaign and it would fit the Palm budget ! They made the ad after all!!
The Palm Pre advert that should have been http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYAHsz8BxDk
What they need to do, to my mind, is what I said in the Live Chat on Monday:
Start out with Miss Creepy, whispering something like, "Sometimes, I feel like my Palm Pre wants to make me coffee and biscuits," when she is suddenly interrupted by a male voice offscreen: "Hey! HEY!"
The camera pans over to show the speaker, either a burly Everyman or indie Everygeek.
"Look, my Palm Pre doesn't read my mind or ask me how I feel or cook me dinner--but it DOES do E-mail, real Internet surfing, plays my music, hooks into all my online calendars, does GPS, and a lot more--and it does them all AT THE SAME TIME.
Let's see any other phone do that."
He looks back at Miss Creepy, and softens a bit, albeit in a snarky manner.
"Look, I can get you the name of a good psychologist. Get some help."
The screen fades to black and the Palm logo comes up in glowing white. A line underneath the logo reads, "Palm Pre. It's crazy good."
(Or, alternately, "So good, itls crazy."
That way, you continue brand awareness while flipping it on its head-- AND you tell people what the phone actually DOES.
There's the kernel of a good ad in that! +1.
I'm no Pre expert .. Doesn't each "Card" represent an app? Isn't there a limit to the number of Cards (5?)? You have five "Cards" in your list above PLUS "and a lot more [...] at the same time" .. I am sure the other phones will do this once the user interface isn't impacted in the slightest way (keeping 100% smooth transitions and/or no sluggishness).
You do have a good "out" for the generic, washed out girl ads. Palm should do something hip/cool and make her, and the original ads, a great punch line.
I agree on pulling the plug. The commercials on the palm site where it showcases the gentleman waking up early in the morning doing the voice over of his day planned out and using the pre really struck me. Why aren't they putting that on TV? When I saw that ad on the palm site, I thought the world of the phone. I think the ads with the creepy lady has got to go. Palm is getting attention but not good attention. My ph is an extension of who I am, and to a degree, so is the marketing behind it. Make me cooler and smarter than the iPhone customers, not weird, k thx.
I disagree... And why would anyone who already has a pre be against the 'campaign'???
Palm, if you are watching... Keep at it bra.. Job well done. Wonderful 1st gen device and 'we' already know it. Keep the mystique behind the wonderful commercials withthe fine woman, i'd hit it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree on pulling the plug. The commercials on the palm site where it showcases the gentleman waking up early in the morning doing the voice over of his day planned out and using the pre really struck me. Why aren't they putting that on TV? When I saw that ad on the palm site, I thought the world of the phone. I think the ads with the creepy lady has got to go. Palm is getting attention but not good attention. My ph is an extension of who I am, and to a degree, so is the marketing behind it. Make me cooler and smarter than the iPhone customers, not weird, k thx.
What they need to do, to my mind, is what I said in the Live Chat on Monday:
Start out with Miss Creepy, whispering something like, "Sometimes, I feel like my Palm Pre wants to make me coffee and biscuits," when she is suddenly interrupted by a male voice offscreen: "Hey! HEY!"
The camera pans over to show the speaker, either a burly Everyman or indie Everygeek.
"Look, my Palm Pre doesn't read my mind or ask me how I feel or cook me dinner--but it DOES do E-mail, real Internet surfing, plays my music, hooks into all my online calendars, does GPS, and a lot more--and it does them all AT THE SAME TIME.
Let's see any other phone do that."
He looks back at Miss Creepy, and softens a bit, albeit in a snarky manner.
"Look, I can get you the name of a good psychologist. Get some help."
The screen fades to black and the Palm logo comes up in glowing white. A line underneath the logo reads, "Palm Pre. It's crazy good."
(Or, alternately, "So good, itls crazy."
That way, you continue brand awareness while flipping it on its head-- AND you tell people what the phone actually DOES.
check out the apps on the PRE
It's one of the reasons why i'm not all in with Palm. I had hoped to leave the apple world and go back to Palm but i'm having too much trouble with their focus, marketing (only took the first commercial to tell this), EOS (very poor choice for palm), etc. Palm didn't learn despite making the same past mistakes (just shocks me really).
After being one of the few cheerleaders a year ago who advised his clients to buy, i dumped the stock a while back and took the gain and advised clients to do the same.
As a result, i'm pretty much fulltime with the iphone 3GS. The Pre is used at home and in car for 15 a month as a backup/toy.
Honestly, i'm still shocked they could take such a concept with so much promise and manage to screw it up as they have.
I agree! If the ads can't make the product look cool, why would I buy it? I mean, I'd only buy a Pre to impress my friends, and with these ads they won't think it's cool at all.
I guess that went over your head. It's not about the commercials being cool or impressing friends, it's about Palm and their goofy decisions. Hard to back a product when you're constantly shaking your head wondering what the hell are they doing.. Still waiting for the light to come on over at Palm.
THERE ARE SIX NEW APPS IN THE APP CATALOGUE!!!!! I SAID IT FIRST!!!!!
You'll be able to fill up all that storage space in no time!!
Is there a link to see the commercial?
I don't find the ads creepy at all. I think Tamara is sexy. I really wish people would move on and quit critiquing the ads though. THAT is what I find annoying.
The ads aren't creepy. They are just incredibly stupid. The guy's at Palm said they wanted ppl to say "wtf" and talk about the ads. Which...sure is sorta working, but they could have achieved the SAME result with a much cooler ad. Just off the top of my head.
A ninja steals a palm pre from a factory. He then goes to the roof of said building right before it explodes and jumps into a helicopter. Then the palm pre ad appears..... The same "wtf did I just watch" reaction would happen. Except the commercial would be many times better and more eye catching and entertaining then some girl talking in a bland voice.
They should make some ads with the "RELEASE THE PRE" guy. He was very funny and captivating.
i wish they showed the Pre/iPhone revenge video. That would sell a slew of Pre's. It was fantastic! How about a contest for
who could make a awesome Pre commercial? Quit the freaking talking and do something! like homebrew...and the community reaps the benefit.
Perhaps it is time to go the self-parody route: contact Jonathan Coulton and let him play "Creepy Doll" in a commercial as images of the Borg queen are overlaid. :)
I don't care for the ads that much. They hardly show the phone in most of them. They should use the little welcome video that comes on the pre as a commercial. Does a much better job of showing what it can do. They might think there going to get sued by apple though cause it looks a lot like the old iphone ones. Although those were just great ads because it showed exactly what you could do with the phone.
I've been critiquing Palm ads (and most frequently a lack of ads) for years. The GOOD news is that the Pre is ALL OVER the web on tech and news web sites and the girl with no eyebrows or eyelashes is nowhere to be seen.
As for effective TV commercials, I'm pretty certain that Palm has missed the mark. Interestingly the Pre is very small and shown very little. Even the "beauty shot" at the end shows the Pre as a relatively small device, taking up a small portion of the screen. Contrast that with almost ALL other tech device commercials (laptops, iPods, iPhones, etc.) where they are PROUD of their devices and there are screen-filling images of the beautiful device.
Heck, think about all of us before we got our hands on a real Pre... we didn't want more talking heads telling us about the Pre (no offense intended to our buddy Dieter), we wanted BIG pictures of the Pre itself.
C'mon Palm! Be proud! Show the Pre and MAKE IT BIG.
As for the concept of the ads, there needs to be a slogan or theme that is brief, clever, encompasses the Pre's unique concepts, and is memorable/clever enough that it gets people talking at the water cooler. - A phrase like "smooth connections, no rough edges" plays into synergy, multiple connectivity (WiFi, GPS, EvDo, voice, etc.), and all the connections in your life; and "smooth connections" lends itself to all kinds of clever, brand-building TV commercial possibilities.
(Now, if they could just add the missing PIM functionality for business people who actually use a mobile calendar and need real notes and tasks, they'd actually be getting rid of all the "rough edges" and be delivering what they claimed.)
So what I'm getting out of this is that the majority of you want the Pre ads to be exactly like the iPhone ads; about half want the Pre to be the iPhone. Why aren't you fanboys still on ATT with iPhones?
I for one like the ads, they are different and intriguing. If I didn't already know about the Pre I'd google it from the wtf factor of the commercial.
By being like the iphone ads, you mean actually showing what the phone can do? Didn't know Apple had a copyright on that concept.
I've had some relatives (knowing i have the Pre by now) call up and ask if it had a web browser. That's the number one feature desired by the majority who buy smartphones like the iphone or Pre (and actually one of best features of the Pre). And Palm doesn't even mention it.
How much is it? What kind of plan do you need? Can it play music? Etc, etc. People are stupid. You have to market that way.
I just would like to know WHY some Pre owners are so obssessed with the Pre AD campaign? Are you really not "cool" if the advertisement for your phone is "Creepy?" Maybe you're just "creepy" and you're transferring! LOL! I've never seen an advertisement for Paradigm speakers but they are some of the best speakers you will ever own. I've never seen an advertisement for an NAD receiver but I have one that's 10 years old along with those speakers and my home stereo sound system still blows away anyhing that's new and heavily advertised. Among audio aficionados, these products are legend and will never die! The reality is, commercials are needed to introduce a product, but if you have to KEEP spending millions to KEEP advertising your product then the product must not be that good! Take movies for example; think about some of the greatest movies you've ever seen... how many commercials did you see once those really great movies were released? Conversely, how often have you seen tons of advertisement for crappy movies after they've been released? Hello? If it needs that much advertisement, then it's not catching fire!!! Moral of this story, build a product that's so good that advertisement campaigns are obsolete! Use that advertisement money to deliver an awesome product and awesome support for it. To be honest, how many new Iphone commercials do you really see? Pre owners, and I have one, on this site are some of the most nervous, impatient, and wimpy folks that I've ever seen. Is your life really so wrapped up in this phone that you are SOMEWHERE talking with SOMEONE about a Palm Pre commercial? If so, GET A GIRLFRIEND!! Bottom line, Palm knows what they need to do to make the Pre competetive with the Iphone and it has nothing to do with an AD campaign. Make a SUPERIOR product that your customers can brag to their friends about and "BAMM" theirs your ad campaign! The advertisement cost for Palm $0.00, zilch, nada! I'm no different than the rest of you when it comes to Palm loyalty. We waited on the Pre and we believe in Palm and we want to win! When I learned about owning a Palm device, it wasn't through a TV or internet advertisement. I found out about them through "WORD OF MOUTH."
LOL! "Keep Hope Alive."
Oh, and I have one more thing to ponder. When I came to know Palm equipment, it was like a best kept little secret! You felt like you had something no one else had and Palm loyalty was "crazy"(creepy) like that! To be honest, Palm's ad campaign falls in line with their best kept secret image! They were never a big commercialized firm like Apple and that's not what they should try to be. Palm needs to keep their mystique of offering unbelievable functionality that's downright shocking(crazy) and hard to live without! They need to improve the Pre's software and app store and they will win customers over again!!!
The ads are not creepy, I personally like them. I don't get what the big deal is. And for the author to posit that palm needs to change their marketing because he doesn't personally like it seems to be a bit of a stretch for a featured post like this.
I agree! Why not keep pushing for Palm to improve the Pre? Everyday, there should be an article banging away at why we don't have call forwarding, text resending, text forwarding, cut and paste from anywhere, picture saving from web pages, saving music and video files from emails, better handling of call-waiting(three-way calling), specific ringtones for specific applications, message indication lights, to name a few if not most. And, I've given up on getting any updates to further optimize battery life. I just have to get a new battery/backup.
I agree, I am starting to lose interest in this site becuse I am tired of them whining about the commercials.
Wow what a novel idea.. I almost forgot that I could just stop coming to this site. LOL! I've not ever seen anything more idiotic than whining about an ad campaign. I wonder if these fools really think the Iphone successful because of an ad campaign. Apple has a huge fan base first and foremost and they have presented an awesome product. That's why the Iphone is successful. The ad campaign helped_ but I assure you if you attached the pre's adverising to the Iphone, Ild be willing to bet that sales would stay as they are or increase for Apple.......sales pitch is about 25% of a product's success. Its up to the product to do the rest......
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