Posts Tagged: palm pre

advertising / creative / strategy — 6 Comments
9
Mar 10

Palm Pre: hanging on for dear life

[Sorry, the commercial I featured in this post has mysteriously disappeared from YouTube.]

It would be tough for Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein to have nightmares scarier than his everyday reality. Under-budgeted and under-technologied, he must do battle with iPhone, BlackBerry and the League of Android.

Yet the show must go on. So the ad agency is tasked with somehow stirring up interest for the Palm Pre Plus, making enough noise to give this little fella a fighting chance. What would you do? Rhetorical question. But I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be the above.

This ad, creatively entitled Features, is exactly that: a fairly dry list of features. This wisp of an idea is actually more of prayer: maybe, possibly, if we list enough distinguishing features, people will start lining up to buy this thing.

Sorry Palm, it doesn’t work that way. First, if these really are your best features, you might as well hang it up right now. Signature styling? Smart notifications? Integrated calendar view? An app that turns your phone into a mobile hot spot? Oh. Well that last one’s actually pretty cool. But a single shiny thing is hardly going to steal your quarry from the clutches of iPhone or Android. Second, creativity is your friend. At least it should be. You just made a movie with an email-sized idea.

This spot is further proof of something that hardly needs more proving: most companies do not take risks at times of crisis — even if that might be their best chance for recovery. They operate on logic. They play it safe when, more than anything, they need to capture people’s imaginations. There is no imagination-capturing going on here. Spots like this are born of rooms filled with nervous people.

Only a creative idea can command attention and change perceptions. Or, I should say, a creative idea with a budget that lets you play with the big boys. The more Palm churns out harmless ads like this, the farther into the hole they sink.

advertising / creative / strategy — 2 Comments
10
Sep 09

Going where someone has gone before

How do you sell an okay smartphone like Palm Pre when you’re up against a certifiable revolution like iPhone? Not so easy. So let us exude warmth and empathy for our advertising brothers up north, doing this work for Bell Canada. Then let’s slap them around a bit for violations of the creative code.

We could file this under “imitation is the greatest form of flattery.” But we’ll instead file it under “imitation.” Look at this spot (one of three I see on YouTube) and see if it reminds you of anything. In theory, one valid form of attack would be to turn Apple’s weapon against them. However — if you’re going to use that technique to somehow call attention to your own product, surely you could add some distinguishing mark of your own. A clever ending, perhaps? An unexpected twist? A stylish vest? (Oh, right, they tried that.) If not for brand-building reasons, there’s always professional honor.

I think there’s a valuable lesson here for every student of our craft. The quality of voiceover and music in this spot are not excruciatingly bad — they just seem that way. And they seem that way because we all play back the Apple spots in our minds — and, sorry, Apple got there first. That’s the danger of imitating. You’re not dealing with absolutes, you’re dealing with human perception. Personally, this spot just makes me want to hug my iPhone a little harder.

I couldn’t find any current references to those responsible for Bell’s work, other than some older news releases referencing “The Dream Team” of four agencies working together on behalf of Bell, “led by an elite trio of creative directors collaborating in a new and innovative client-agency model.” Note to PR department: stop it.