Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Do Palm's Bland New Ads Make You Want to Buy a Pre?

by Warren Riddle on August 6, 2009 at 06:31 AM


Challenging the BlackBerry and iPhone's collective dominance over the smartphone marketplace can be a daunting task. With its odd new line of Pre ads, Palm is at least creating a stir, even though the majority of reviews may not be positive.

The ads feature an actress with a monotonous and soothing voice (an increasingly lazy science fiction and tech cliche) who seeks to inspire self-reflection with weak attempts at artistic and profound commentary. The comments have absolutely nothing to do with smartphones, though.

According to Adage, Modernista co-founder Gary Koepke (the man behind the campaign) asked himself, "Could the ads work harder to show exactly how the phone works?" He responded, "Yes, but we knew it would be polarizing people to have a woman not shout at them and tell an interesting story." 'Interesting' might not be an apt description.

If Modernista's only goal was to get people talking, then the ads can be considered a success. If the firm wanted to create excitement and actually inspire people to purchase the Pre (rather than just discuss it), then following the lead of Kaspersky Labs would have been a better idea. Watching Jackie Chan kick and punch his way through an army of competing smartphones would be irrefutably awesome. [From: Adage and Engadget]

Tags: advertising, business, commercial, marketing, modernista, Palm Pre, PalmPre, smartphone, smartphones, top

Comments

43

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular