I watched a video last night on Hulu. In the span of half an hour, I saw this commercial for Palm Pre approximately 196 times. For those of you who haven’t seen it, picture a waifish redheaded woman sitting on a rock in the midst of a majestic valley framed by distant mountains. Surrounded by hundreds of Chinese gymnasts in flowing robes performing elaborate maneuvers.
Also – and I’m not sure about this – I believe there may be a phone involved somehow.
After a few times seeing this ad I was ready to throw something at the screen. This whole episode led me to two questions:
- Is this some sort of little-known jobs program by the Chinese government to find post-Olympics employment for the gymnasts from the Beijing opening ceremonies?
- If you have a compelling product (and they do – I played with one recently, it’s great) why not feature it more prominently?
Sometimes marketers can outsmart themselves. Highly abstract advertising definitely has a place, but it’s been done better elsewhere and is not the best choice for Palm. Ultimately they do very little in these ads to address why the Pre is better than the two main competitors: the iPhone or Blackberry.
This overproduced, strident advertising has attracted plenty of attention and even spoofs. There is a school of thought that any buzz is good; but for a product in Palm’s position, in a clear trailing position behind two dominant market leaders, this isn’t good enough. They’ve done their brand a disservice by dialing up the abstract, lifestyle-statement aspect of the campaign at the expense of any tangible demonstration of the product.
