Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.
-John Wanamaker
Advertising and branding are very complicated and very unpredictable fields, and success can be measured according to any number of metrics. Modernista, the ad agency behind the soft-talking-lady ads that only occasionally seem to be talking about phones, seem to be measuring success based on attention. Of course, the attention is almost entirely negative, but that doesn’t faze them.
In an article in Ad Age, Executive Creative Director at Modernista, Gary Koepke, discusses the oft-maligned “Ms. Hope” spots.
The Pre is probably being talked about more than other phones right now because of the marketing and advertising, and that’s a good thing. Could the ads work harder to show exactly how the phone works? Yes, but we knew it would be polarizing people to have a woman not shout at them and tell an interesting story.
“Polarizing” is industry-standard code for “universally mocked,” in case you’re confused.
There’s nobody involved in an iPhone ad, and ‘Your life is on BlackBerry’ — isn’t that great? Instead of having a life? We wanted a middle ground between those two places — what about the people who want a really great smartphone?
Yes, what about those people? I would submit that the first step towards good advertising is knowing your audience. An advertiser must ask first of all, who is the product for and who is the ad for. Is this an ad for women, for men, is it for experts, for novices? In this case, it’s for experts, since he says it’s about people who want a great smartphone. They’re not aiming at the feature-phone set, they’re aiming at established users of smartphones.
Now that that’s established, what is the strategy of the ad? Are you trying to explain? Convert? Attack? Do you want to be direct or indirect? Sell it whole or piecemeal? For Palm, it has to be conversion, because as they’ve always said, this is about taking smartphone users from other platforms (they’ll likely target Eos ads at newer and upgrading users). Let’s see what they came up with.
Okay… so the target is expert smartphone users and the object is conversion, that much was evident from Palm’s strategy and Koepke’s statement. Then why the devil is their ad a soft-spoken lady telling parables about jugglers in the park?
I can only imagine that Modernista felt that Palm’s whole new approach to the smartphone OS required a more meta approach to advertising. But meta-advertising and oblique advertising have a bad reputation for a reason (Welcome to the social, anyone?) — if your meta-idea is difficult to process, your supposedly insidious advertisement gets knocked out of the target brain by the next shiny object that appears on screen.
Welcome to the viral failure
I’m not a director of creative whatever, but as a consumer and writer I’m a special kind of expert on advertising: I know when it’s working on me. And simple observation of the internets after each ad hits reveals that it’s not working on anybody who sees one and can write about it. This wouldn’t be a problem (dumb, weird ads have succeeded before) — except I and people like me, the ones most impervious to this kind of advertisement, are the target audience.
The ads may have been effective if they were promoting something else, I can’t think of what — lotion, maybe, or a really nice oven. Actually, anything with a signal feature that makes it okay to have the majority of a 30-second spot be some lady’s opium-addled face, and only a tiny bit be the product itself (”Woah! Did you see that crazy oven?”). That’s cognitive contrast, and that’s okay if the essence of your product can be gotten across in a moment. Car companies get away with nonsense ads because they show a car. Fragrance ads get away with them because one ad is as good as another when you can’t smell the product. But in Palm’s case, nothing is shown that leads to any comprehension. Just bafflement — and not the kind of bafflement that makes you google things.
This discussion could go on and on, of course, into different theories of this and that, but I think that the smartphone-using set has definitively rejected these ads. They simply don’t work, because the most compelling aspect of Palm’s proposition (the damn phone) is de-emphasized almost to non-existence. And despite the smooth nature of the spots, they don’t fail gracefully.
A lot of writing, but all I hear is that *you* were confused.
The first time I saw it I was fast forwarding my TiVo, saw something intriguing, and I rewound through two other ads to see what it was all about. I’ve watched both (I think there are only two so far) a couple of times each, and feel I have a better idea about the Pre than I ever had before. Too bad it’s not on AT&T, the best network in my non-urban environs, as I would be tempted.
What exactly did you learn from the ads? I don’t see any substantive information being put across. It’s not exactly that I’m confused, but rather that there’s nothing there to even pay attention to.
-edit: Also, since it was the Modernista guy that sparked this post, it’s worth noting that the ads are totally unlike what he says they’re for.
Well, what I learned is that there is this phone, called a Pre, that maybe isn’t like those *other* phones which are targeted towards arrogant, self-centered geeks who are obsessed by the latest gadgets.
*Maybe* this phone will actually be easier for me to use.
For some people, “a phone that doesn’t suck” is a powerful message.
The fact that you can’t recognize that is a failure on your part to understand the market.
Apple has the fast paced bang-bang-bang “an app for that” ads all sewn up. Palm simply can’t compete using that sort of ad.
Instead they’ve chosen to portray their product as the “soft & comfortable” alternative. Sadly for Palm, I think that most such customers who would be swayed by such an approach would need a peer or two who adopted the Pre before they would buy one themselves.
Without such a peer network, it’s the “Zune effect” all over again.
This ads will in no way sway me to purchase a Pre (three little words: “exposed plastic screen”) any more than you.
But everything isn’t about *me*…
I agree entirely with Jim, Devin has lost it on this.
The ad clearly tries to give the idea that ‘all this stuff’ that seems to come on phones, can be effortlessly understood and managed without feeling like you are juggling. Showing the movements of apps immediately makes any user think they can understand how to move around the phone.
The second part highlights all the uses, and actually I think it is less effective at making it ‘the zen of simplicity, organising your life’.
Still, it is fairly unique as an ad, and makes people remember that it is a new phone, and ‘that phone’.
Until now, me, as a programmer / lover of women and shiny objects, I was just waiting to be disappointed by the OS on palm, and I am sure I eventually will be, this made me feel like i might not be.
Must grok the palm OS a bit more, but really, can it be that mature?
The 2nd commercial is more confusing. it was too long, the impact/take away message was in the end.
i also dont understand why everyone besides the main girl in the video is asian?
They are the yin to your…
With the second they seem to be invoking the geography of Guizhou, China with those hills and some sort of mandala thing … maybe, just maybe a vague reference to the touchstone charger?
Incredibly vague. Say what you will about the iPhone, but it’s ads are anything but vague; misleading perhaps, but straight forward.
Um, why was everyone on “Friends” white?
dumb question.
I’ve commented on this on TechCrunch stories at least 2 or 3 times — the Pre ads come across as directed at women to me. I feel like they don’t want me to buy the phone. And no, they haven’t made me want to look for more information or think about buying a Pre more often.
The only somewhat neutral Pre ads I saw were in movie theaters, featuring a big three-dimensional webpage composed of boxes that look something like a cross between Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. But it still seemed very female-centric, like it was being advertised to college girls.
More like boring, expressionless college girls with a stick up there ass. She makes the phone seem like something you ask you doctor about…
Ironic, your comment, much like the pre ads, says nothing.
Same here, I’d love a Pre.
[tech]
Speculating about mass market reaction to an ad, then using the phrase, “And simple observation of the internets…” = pretentious fail
I ‘d never seen those ads before. They are great and you are wrong. they do seem to be a little more oriented towards women, but still they are great and quite effective.
hell, even the fact that you write about it proves they ‘re doing a good job
They’re only effective if the Pre sales. When it fails, you’ll have been proven wrong.
so for any product that doesn’t sell well, is it because of the ads? doesn’t sound logical to me
How?
think harder, it’s primary logic
Fail marketing campaign is fail. Which is a tragedy when you realize they’re actually shilling for a product which is pretty decent.
They spent money with FM – so yes, all of their money has been wasted!
I think its the subtle link about eve playing wid a pre and not an apple.. in the garden of eden .. ;-)
I thought their campaign so far was awful. With how much press iphones get, all they have to do is differentiate themselves from the standard (iphone). Like…It doesn’t drop calls. I get get calls in buildings. It’s a phone first and a computer 2nd not like the iphone which is a computer first, followed by app machine, ipod and then phone. I took back my iphone after a week because I missed so many calls. I mean, what is the use of a phone if it does not work.
I have heard a lot of people say these ads creeped them out or didnt make sense, but I just watched the two of these for the first time and I have to say, I think they are great.
Im not about to convert from my iPhone, but if I were someone who had never had a ’smartphone’ before I’d be really interested in how this thing can make my life easier and flow more effectively. (especially if I was a woman…)
Specifically, that second ad… I thought it was incredibly well done with the metaphor of the dancers with the woman’s life. I think this is targeted towards newcomers to the smartphone market and I must say, the campaign does its job wonderfully.
I agree although not entirely. I think the ads could be a little less obtuse but generally speaking I think they aren’t terrible and that they are in fact aimed at first-time smartphone users which is Palm’s stated market for the Pre.
Palm people have said in a number of interviews that they aren’t directly going after iPhone or Blackberry users but the untapped masses of feature phone users like myself who still use a V3 RAZR and haven’t yet made the leap.
I do agree however that the Pre ads are slightly on the feminine side but the fact still stands that the ads work as they’ve generated a lot of discussion including this article.
Remember the Quiznos spongemonkeys? I didn’t eat there for years afterward…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrks-BPeLQ
Wow, I totally forgot about them. I didn’t start going to Quiznos until long after those were off the air too. I wonder if it’s because they turned me off from it.
“They got a pepper bar.”
Still makes me laugh.
It’s almost like they should be selling a Prius or a Civic Hybrid our something super uber green.
That chick looks creepy.
Isn’t she the stoner from the Apple Mac ads all grown up? Seems like there are more ex-Apple employees at Palm.
The point is that multitasking and synergy make running one’s life easier. This isn’t selling to the speeds and feeds crowd. It’s selling to people that don’t have a smartphone yet and wonder why they need one. These ads are inventive and eye catching.
The first time I saw Pre ads, I couldn’t even make out what product they are selling. I had to wait till the ad ended and the “P”, “r”, “e” got stringed together on the screen.
I wonder how do those, supposedly ubersmart people that work in Pre Marketing/Sales, approve this kind of gibberish.
Yes, extremely poor execution from Palm’s agency or poor direction from Palm to the agency; whichever comes first.
Swap the phone for a bottle of perfume or tampons and it’s still the same ad. Which reminds me, the ad does look a lot like Gucci’s Flora ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpDoklTEz8
Though that one has way better creative, as it was directed by Chris Cunningham.
you are doing exatly waht they want, and that is what they were thinking… everyone is talking about it bringing more publicity to them then apple’s. A commercial doesnt have to be great to work, it just has to get your attention and give you something to remember. If you ask me, they did a grat job of that. And it has brought them the attention they wanted.
No, a good ad not only has to be memorable, but also enforces the product/brand it’s advertising.
By your definition, 2G1C would be a wonderful ad.
Oh, I suppose you’d argue that those iconic ipod ads with the silhouettes were marketing genius? What do *they* say???? The fucking thing plays music?
Precisely.
That thing plays music. and…
and enjoy.
Your comments are a bit harsh. Different creative treatments are used at various times in a product’s lifecycle. Obviously the launch had a specific set of goals. User experience as a feeling was one of them. I found the calm mood of the ads evokes a sense that the product she’s holding will blend seemlessly into the way she lives her life. It will harmonize rather than disrupt. This lays the groundwork for interesting follow-up creative.
It made you talk about it, which is the point anyways….. right?
No smart guy, that’s not the point. Advertising is supposed to encourage or entice you to purchase a product or service.
This encourages me to purchase an iPhone instead.
I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention the creepy, disturbing remix of the first ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr4oNfF4_Fo
This was actually the first version of the ad I saw, and it’s pretty disturbing, like a cutscene out of Silent Hill or something. Now the real one creeps me out too.
That’s the first version I saw too, and the version I thought everybody was reacting to. The original is just bland by comparison.
Those ads are about a *smartphone*? I had no idea…
FYI, “Pré” in French means meadow or pasture. That could explain the “über-green” touch of those ads…
The embedded videos are one thing, but I saw this one first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG0P8_O8u64
What the hell is that? It would have been more appropriate as an ad for the William Shatner school for voice acting.
Seriously. FAIL.
I’ve seen worse. I thought the ads were ok….all things considered.
I actually like these ads. I still won’t trade my Android Phone for a Pre, but the ads have put my mind in calm mood. I shall now commence hacking.
I have a visceral revulsion for these ads. They are just really freaky, like being in the matrix. You have this soft spoken chick talking to you about something really inconsequential like it’s important and she’s somehow trying to seduce you. Yet you get the strong vibe n the back of your head that you are being tricked. This isn’t really a woman at all… it’s a man, man! So yeah it’s like they are trying to fool you into buying one of these. Don’t do it guys, you’ll be in for a nasty surprise.
I also noticed one commercial where she’s going over a map or something and saying, “bing, bing, bing.” Did Microsoft pay to play in these ads?
When I saw the commercial for the first time I absolutely thought this was for bing. Conclusion: monumental fail.
I don’t think that Palm’s first mission is to convert people who have iPhones. That is not going to happen. Have you ever heard someone speak disparaging about their iPhone? OK well maybe the network but most love it in spite of that.
I think the mission of this ad campaign is to mobilize the many people who had a positive experience with Palm devices at some point and have some degree of loyalty to the brand. This ad campaign is soothing and basically just validates the notion that you could have a positive experience with this device too.
They have to make up ground quickly and the going the for the “base” is the best way to get things started. In my small circle I do note that a a disproportionate number of the people I know who either bought the Pre or are seriously interested in it are woman who owned Palms in the past.
Just my two cents anyways.
The commercials are referencing sci-fiction movies. The “Juggler” is a play on a scene from BLADE RUNNER, and the “Go with the flow” commercial is a take on VANILLA SKY.
Effective? Not in my opinion. But great trivia for film geeks.
The second ad is trying to say that people nowadays are into their phones so much that they can even ignore thousands of choreographed monks in the middle of nowhere.
So girls, next time you’re in a meadow in your underwear, stop and smell the roses or at least ask which one of them is the Dalai Lama.
These left me feeling confused. Interesting strategy, but pulled off poorly. Connecting wisdom and soul to a phone is not a bad idea for trying to distinguish themselves. But rather than have a “phone powered by heart and soul” concept, they tried to be profoundly deep, so deep that the message and the product are lost. The results are confusing and unclear, which ultimately make the product seem out of touch. Reminds me of many local actors and college professors.
I love seeing these ads on tv!
Why???
I think someone juggling one ball would look pretty damn easy.
C * R * E * E * P * y
+1 (for the first ad)
Every time I see one of those ads I think “MAN I love her hair. Is she wearing makeup? She has such perfect classical features. She looks like a pre-Raphelite pianting. I wish I had her hair.”
Which isn’t to say the Pre isn’t cool, or that I didn’t notice it in the ad – but I just know it’s out of my budget and not on my carrier, so I mostly think her hair is really neat.
I like the ads.
If I was in the market it would probably sway me from the arrogant iPhone prescriptive story with the helpful supporting vibe (and yes although the ads do seem to target women both me and my wife agree they’re watchable and engaging)
TechCrunch by the very fact of it’s position on the bleeding edge is probably not that great a litmus test of what ordinary folks will like …
I hope Palm makes it (third time’s a charm) and having quirky ads can’t hurt engage with an audience being bombarded with Apple and RIM hype
It’s like they’re selling tampons and fabric softener.
we’ve seen this type of advertising fail before.
when the infiniti car brand launched they had similarly “zen” advertising… waves crashing along a pebble beach and other nature scenes.
meanwhile lexus had ads with champagne glasses stacked up on the hood, and ball bearings running down the car’s seams to show how perfectly engineered it was.
needless to say lexus ate infiniti’s lunch… and infiniti has never recovered.
Exactly… you have provided the analogy which I could not. When I first heard about the Pre, visited Palm’s website, read all about it, I was so excited to get one when my T-Mobile contract was up.
Initial sales looked really good as well. Now that Palm has allowed Modernista! to run wild producing ridiculous sh*t like this, I’m not only going to wait for Verizon’s new uberphone, I actually want the Pre to fail now.
Comparing the using of a smartphone to reincarnation? To a juggler? What kind of ridiculous crap is that? Its a damn phone. It makes calls, downloads your Outlook address book, stores your photos and some MP3s. Its not a lifestyle or career choice.
These ads are insulting to people who are capable of actually setting aside 30 minutes to read through a manual to learn to use something and insulting to people who aren’t morons.
These ads turned my love for a really amazing new device into an intense loathing.
“I’m not a director of creative whatever, but as a consumer and writer I’m a special kind of expert on advertising”
While I too dislike these ads this statement is not well informed on your part. Simply consuming advertising does not make one an expert. Further, the ad got your attention and in many cases that’s often more than half the battle.
Also the Wannamaker quote is out of date. He was from the era of Sears and Macy’s and profited in part by resigning himself to a lack of accountability in marketing (and spending boldy anyway). That is no longer necessary. There are many tools now available that allow you to know exactly where your waste is and redirect your ad spend accordingly.
It is a new world in marketing, one that includes accountability for making crap that doesn’t work. These Palm ads do fall into that catagory in my view as well. I just think you were a little sloppy in how you made your point…
Using perfume style weird ads to sell a productivity tool = FAIL
I don’t think the quote is out of date. I think people still have no idea how their products get into people’s heads, and while the quote certainly has its context, I’d say it still applies, just in a slightly different way.
I’m with Devin, I couldn’t agree more… that quote is probably even more true nowadays than it was in Wanamaker’s day. I’ve always thought that trying some sort of metaphysical approach to advertising with products whose features can be measured and tested is ridiculous.
You can prove with testing that one car is better than another across any metric you want to use. You can prove that one smartphone is more powerful, drops fewer calls, and is more responsive than another. Some things like colognes and perfumes, you simply need to smell before you purchase… buying things like that based on an ad makes you a pretentious fool.
These advertisements have “pretentious fool” written all over them. What are they selling me? In the first ad, I thought she wanted me to know about reincarnation after the first 15 seconds. By the 25th second or so, I thought she was telling me she couldn’t understand how to use a day planner to schedule her life (or at least days, since as Mignon McLaughlin said – “For the happiest life, days should be rigorously planned, nights left open to chance.”) The second ad was telling me she admires a juggler. How does that sell me a smartphone?? Answer: It doesn’t. My desire to get a Pre is now totally gone.
The web ads look pretty ok!
Cool ads! I like them! Just didn’t get why you made so much noise about them… Are you paid by Palm?
I liked the first Pre ads that didn’t have the girl in them. I also like the Sprint “Now Network” ads, those are very good. The new Pre ads just don’t seem to interesting and the girl is actually kind of creepy. I like the idea that they’re not pushy ads like the iphone ones. I like that direction, but I think they could have done it in a different way. The Pre is a great phone and the Sprint network and customer service have definitely gotten better, thats something they have to portray in they’re ads. The ads with Dan Hessy were pretty good even though some didn’t like them, I did. It showed Sprint has a face, they were more personal ads, him saying “things are getting better”.
Best ad I have ever seen in over 57 years.
Clearly you’ve never heard of the One Show or the Clios.
If this is the best advertisement you’ve seen in 57 years, then I am very pleased that doctors have recently restored your eye sight. Congratulations.
The ad’s suck. Every time I see one I’m left unimpressed.
These ads were nothing but nonsensical fluff that were trying too hard to be abstract and surreal while soft selling the product. The product or its benefits should be the hero, not the eerie protagonist.
Devin, you missed one of the basic rules of advertising: “I don’t care what they’re saying about me, as long as they’re talking about me.”
By the way, phone shopping is on my list for the weekend. The Pre wasn’t on my rader, but now I”m going to check it out. This is a fail??????
Yeah, but how many people are talking about it outside of tech blogs?
Does that really matter? Wouldn’t you settle for reaching a lot of techies with your techno advertising. In fact, it sounds like the targeting is working perfectly.
Take a look at the world outside of San Jose for a minute.
People in the tech world want to develop apps and make money for smartphones. People in the rest of the world (98% of them) don’t care a lot for the apps, they care for the prestige.
Most iPhone buyers buy iPhones because they want people to see them as the kind of people that own an iPhone. Cell phones, like cars, housing and education, are seen as a positional good. Talking on a Tracphone is like driving a Kia.
High-end phone vendors want consumers to think of their products as something that enhances their image, and that’s the goal of this kind of image. You might think that’s dumb, but there’s plenty of people who think it’s dumb to make apps for an App Store that will probably reject them…
Its a sad thing that what you say is so true Paul.
Only a fool buys a product thinking it will elevate their status, and unfortunately there are many fools in the world today.
I was so anti-iPhone for the longest time due to Apple’s iron fisted approach to the App Store (and in their products in general), and in the fact that I find Steve Jobs to be a tremendous tool.
When the Pre website was launched, I was so very excited about this phone. It was from a company that I knew and liked, whose products I’ve used… I thought “This is the phone I’ve been looking for.” Now that these horrible ads have come out, I realize Palm doesn’t actually want me as a customer. I use science, reason, logic, and organization as cornerstones of my life. My phone doesn’t organize my life; I do. These ads tell me this phone is for someone too stupid to organize themselves, and for someone who can’t multi-task without technology assisting.
This is almost anti-advertising, or maybe its advertising in favor of the competition.
Did they hire the MarchFirst / Tuesday PR brain trust?
I think your wrong, this is aimed at the iPhone. There are references over and over to multi processing (”the more balls she had in the air the easier it looked”, “my lives all working together” etc). I wonder how many people even realize the iPhone can’t (or wont) do that.
its true that many buy iphones for the image it projects, but the pre cant take that angle because pre commercials have no chance in hell of giving palm the brand image apple/ipods built up over several years.
unless they are on a ten or twelve year timetable, they should be focusing on gadget whores and technophiles, and these commercials do anything but.
all the tech site reviews of the pre have been glowing, but their commercials seem pretentious and strange. some may like them, and that is great, but the people who they should be marketing to are people who go to pcmag.com and cnet.com
the pre cant be the other phone for cool kids, that takes too much time at this point. if anything, they should take the mac approach to commercials with justin long. just point out all the things the supposedly cool iphone cant do, that the pre can do. (this is coming from an rabid iphone owner)
The first add seems a little vague, The second tells what the palm is about its just a fragment for something what could have the same meaning to any one of us.
So its a good add stop wamma jamming about it good job PALM.
It take time till people feel the vision thats different then the other stuff around which compels to you naggers.
I just purchased a Pre, but these Ads made me want to reconsider. I understand Ad people and what they think they could achieve; but, companies get it wrong when they don’t make the value of their product or service OBVIOUS. Subtlety doesn’t work if you are introducing consumers to a new product. Unless you don’t need sales…
I’m glad I’m not the only one who is haunted by these ads.
Last week I wrote an open letter to the Pre-cog trying to sell us a Palm Pre:
http://www.jumpkicktofreedom.com/2009/07/precog-sells-you-a-palm-pre/