Congratulations. You’re a creative guy who just got the biggest break of his career. You’ve been asked to come up with a multimillion-dollar campaign for HP’s iPad-killer, the TouchPad.
Your head hurts from all the celebrating last night. Unfortunately, it’s about to hurt more — because it’ll be pretty darn hard to come up with an idea that will even put a dent in iPad, which virtually owns the market. Especially with a product that exists only because iPad blazed the trail before it.
What to do, what to do…
Trust me, I’m sympathetic to the challenge here. I was once hired to come up with a Sony campaign that would “bring down the iPod.” Somehow iPod survived that massive creative threat.
So the big idea for TouchPad turned out to be a celebrity spokesperson. That’s not a bad idea in itself. Some of the greatest campaigns in ad history have employed the celebrity spokesperson. It’s just that when you go this route, you have to think long and hard about the celebrity you’re choosing.
Is he/she:
1. Compatible with the brand?
2. Appealing to those you’re trying to convince?
3. Capable of presenting the product well?
4. Truly entertaining?
5. Likely to be busted for lewd behavior?
If you don’t have all the right answers, you risk spending a lot of money on a very big zero. Or, worse still, a negative.
HP decided that Russell Brand was the right guy for the job. Not exactly a household name. In fact, when a commercial starts by telling you the guy’s name, it’s a good indication that most people won’t know who the hell he is. Again, not a deal-killer, but something to consider.
Russell is a quirky English personality with some bad-boy behavior in his past, legal and otherwise. Clearly HP is looking to be “edgy.” To me, he seems like an unrefined Ricky Gervais.
And this is the problem. To most, Russell comes across as just plain bizarre — and not all that funny. His humor comes with some awkwardness. When a joke falls flat (which it does often — like the “dental joke” in this spot), it feels like open-mike night down at the comedy club.
What about the content of this ad? Well, that’s problem #2. The product features we see in this ad are supposed to be things that are missing in iPad. However, simply because of the way Russell presents, very little of his demo seems extraordinary. Hardly enough to make one stop lusting for an iPad.
Russell’s most grievous offense comes at the end. That’s when he openly makes a play for his paycheck by reciting a line that sounds like it was written in the marketing department: “My life is like nothing else. So is yours. HP TouchPad. Works like nothing else.” So much for whatever shred of authenticity Russell was supposed to bring to this party.
But let’s look at this ad in context.
Is HP’s approach any better than Motorola’s high-tech, robotic, spec-laden ad for Xoom? I think so. Though the personality they’ve chosen is questionable, at least the ad has a personality. Will it turn TouchPad into a serious iPad threat? Don’t hold your breath.
(This ad appears to be the launch spot of the HP TouchPad campaign. See a bunch of other spots in this campaign strung together here.)
Tags: hp touchpad, ipad, ken segall, russell brand, russell brand touchpad
