Palm cuts ties with advertising agency

By on Apr 6, 2010 at 7:20 AM
General April 6, 2010

crazy-pre-chick

You know those God awful Palm Pre ads you haven’t been able to escape from for the past year? Well it looks like they’re going to go away for good because it has been revealed that Palm has cut all ties with Modernista, the advertising agency that created the terrible spots. No word yet who or what Palm with be going with for its next ad push, but we can’t imagine it could get any worse.

Thanks, Christopher!

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46 Comments

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  • JF

    Amazing it took so long…shows how bad and stubborn Palm management is…

    • Gauntlet Down

      Perhaps Palm had a one-year contract or something.

      • George

        If they were smart they would have broke the contract and paid whatever fees came along with it. That, and basically everything else imaginable is much better than airing those commercials.

      • Donv69

        Unfortunately, sometimes you need a fire under your ass to act.

      • yaya

        but i actually kinda liked the palm pixi commercial

      • Beau

        yaya (sorry, can’t reply to yours), I agree. I actually sought out and bought the song after I saw that one. It was one good one in a very bad batch.

    • Chris

      I second that. Its truly amazing that Palm is *starting* to move forward. I guess the company reports released a few weeks ago made them come to their census that they were doing a horrible ad campaign. WEB OS is a great OS but the Hardware is Mediocre. The Processor is slow vs. Snapdragon. iPhone 4.0 will probably be a total redesign since 3 generations have passed with the same stale appearance. Android is releasing a new handset every week. RIM is *Starting* to work on its 6.0 OS which I can only hope its more customizable like Android since the poll came out a week ago that more then half of the users from RIM want Android instead.

      • josh

        more than half of the less than 2000 RIM owners surveyed is by far enough statistical evidence to state that more than half of the RIM users want android right?

        2000 people can speak for the RIM user base?

      • Chris

        What a dick can you be. Its a generalized statement RIM is getting old vs. the latest handsets. RIM failed with Touchscreen so I’m pretty sure Storm 1 and 2 Users want Android. A lot of BlackBerry Devices just started getting 5.0 updates and nows the time they are working on 6.0. Also if a survey were to be done with all RIM users the results will probably be identical. Workforce users are ordering iPhones even now to remove Blackberry at least where I work. So go troll someplace else.

      • crazylegs

        Actually, there were about 1000 people in the survey and only 15% were current blackberry users and 39% of those users said they would consider switching. SO, 59 people are definitely reflective of the 41 million bb user base! Ha! what a joke. i think it is you who is the dick, chris, for getting so defensive on josh’s accurate point despite his inaccurate facts.

      • Mike

        I think Crazylegs should mind his business on something Chris was right from the beginning and shouldn’t get so defensive. Josh is just horrible at math and a plain moron since he believes that RIM is so good….Plus if you haven’t noticed RIMS lost its touch over the OS systems since they stayed with old menu styles and a horrible browser.

      • Chris

        Actually all of you miss the bottom line. BlackBerry has failed at maintaing modern systems. I had the BBStorm and it was horrid I never went back to another. My iPhone and Droid beat the BlackBerry devices in 1 minute. The Apps are better, the speed is better compared to lag push menus, the only good thing from BlackBerry is the Email but even thats not worth the hassle. Most people that had and have a blackberry would prefer a refreshed OS. the iPhone still being 3-4 years old seems better to me then regular squares needing a trackball to get around since they failed with touch screens. Thats horrible when every maker on the market has at least 2 touchscreen out. Even Simple feature phones have touch screens and Blackberry is suppose to be a Smartphone brand.

        A survey from a market research firm shows BlackBerry users are the most likely to abandon their phone, while Android and iPhone users are locked in tight, but one analyst has a major bone of contention with the methodology used.
        Online market researchers Crowd Science conducted a survey of 1,040 smartphone owners and asked which phone they would purchase “tomorrow.” Nine out of 10 Android and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone users said they “definitely or probably would” stick with their present platform, but 49 percent of BlackBerry owners said they would go with another smartphone, while 39 percent specifically said they definitely or probably would opt for the iPhone, and 34 percent said they’d defect to an Android device.

        “These results show that the restlessness of BlackBerry users with their current brand hasn’t just been driven by the allure of iPhone,” Crowd Science CEO John Martin said in a statement. “Rather, Blackberry as a brand just isn’t garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems.”

      • Roger

        Its not email that makes the blackberry a great product. It is the security. As a corporate smartphone, blackberry is tough to beat in that regards

      • Chris

        Roger Thank you for understanding. BlackBerry is great for Business Enterprise but personal preference has customizable interfaces, Applications which still are anemic on the BlackBerry App World vs. Apple App Store and even the Android Market Place is gaining market share value. Palm needs to take the next step in trying to stay alive. I believe that would be one of two things. Either make better Hardware and Specs or make Web OS a OS for multiple platform handsets like Android which will allow better hardware to come from manufactures such as HTC, LG, Samsung, etc while still getting a profit from the OS and recognition.

  • JOE

    That picture is trippy.

  • woowoo

    bgr=delayed engadget lol…..seems like I read stuff a day in advance! Hahaha

    • Will

      I agree, I more or less just come to BGR to argue with people about there stupid ass opinions. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

    • Mapex

      A lot of the time Engadget is also a “delayed BGR.” I think it evens out.

  • rusty

    I heard the Ads were very successful in middle earth.

  • Vince Gonzalez

    Absolutely agree. The fact that PALM management could not recognize that these initial Pre ads were terrible before they even got on air, demonstrates how behind the times Palm is, compared to their development team that worked on the Pre.

    • telecombroker

      a deaf, dumb and blind person would have known that the ads were absolutely horrible. Where did they find that agency anyway..Sprint? Only Sprint could come up with worse ads…..

  • woowooe

    bgr=delayed engadget lol…..seems like I read stuff a day in advance! Hahaha

  • Bhavin

    I cant believe these morons at Palm approved the commercials that this agency produced and set it free on air.

  • George

    A year and a half too late…

  • David

    Why the effort…they’ll be out of business soon.

    • http://blog.infomofo.com InfoMofo

      Yeah, I mean isn’t it just as possible they cut ties because they’re out of money?

  • (The real Jarrett) Jarrett

    Does it really matter what Palm does at this point? Palm needs to just find a buyer and get it over with. Unless they have new hardware on the way that is going to take advantage of that great software.

  • MikeD

    This is a classic example of a great device but horrible management of marketing.

    If Apple were to run commercials like that it would have been the “Jesus” factor that the haters love to label their products. but instead Apple took a great approach. They made their iPhone relatable to the average consumer. Yes it irritates Geeks, but helped to sell millions of iPhones.

    HTC had a great set of Commercials as well. The human connection was there.

    The Moto Droid commercials had an edge to it like an XBox commercial and garnered a lot if attention from especially from young men.

    But the Palm commercials were too indirect and a little spooky I might add. They failed to show the benefits of multitasking on a smartphone to the general public. Which is hard to do without getting technical.

    If Palm is to save itself they need to show the practicality side of the device and not the geek factor. Why, because the non-geek market totally dwarfs the geek market.

    I love Palm for what they have done over the years. They took the concept of the Apple’s Newton and made spawned the Palm pilot. I still have my Palm OS 5 compatible Sony Clie NX70 in it’s dock charging. Little used since I got my iPhone, but fond memories are still fresh in my mind.

    I hope Palm can pull off a comeback and still be among the landscape of the many companies making amazing devices.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • ChocoTaco

    Why this ad company would pick a terribly pale woman with a receding hairline to do the spots is beyond me. She’s a little spooky.

  • ron

    Chris, “I guess the company reports released a few weeks ago made them come to their census that they were doing a horrible ad campaign.”

    It’s ‘senses’, in case you’d like to know.

    Probably graduated 10th grade too!

    • Mike

      Yea, Probably got confused with all this US Census Crap going around. They have so many commercials I eve prefer the Mac Vs. PC from Apple. They should make new ones since the last one was a while ago.

      • Chris

        Your both wrong and so am I. I meant consensus. The ad agency was way off with a Smartphone and “Fields” “Crop Circles” and what was the stupid commercial with all the people gathering around that were all holographic and anemic looking. That should’ve been placed in the Movie Signs or some horror film.

      • ron

        Your explanation make no sense within the context in which it was made. Just fess up.

  • user

    Palm had – I assume – 30 seconds to show what their new phone could do. Instead, they decided to focus on fluff talk.

    The masses didn’t particularly get the message. When you’re an underdog you need a compelling message to make your potential customers consider you over the others.

    There are far too many creative people that lose sight of the message and too many engineers that wouldn’t know marketing if it hit them on the noggin, so overpaid advertising agencies will never be short of customers.

    Palm. Live and learn. While you’re at it, understand that people want a MicroSD slot.

  • Ez

    I thought they dropped them a year ago!! Wow what a horrible product promotion add. Just shows the result when advertising agence is completely oblivious and doesnt understand its product, target audience or competition. Commercial is whats resposible for un enthusoastic and featureless adds. Im sure palm could do much better had they kept it simple stupid like apple or htc who actually show functionality of some of the phones features. This is what happens when someone tried to re-invent the wheel and not do basic product promotion. Retarded !!

  • Elway7

    I think she,s really pretty. she just needs a couple units of blood.

    • Chris

      If you think she is “realy pretty” what do consider normal? She looks like some anemic, projected alien. For one thing the face looks as if she had Botox, at least from the picture above. Also I don’t Understand why Standing on a rock has something to do with a phone so why did they put her on a commercial advertising a great OS is very hard for me to understand.

  • Booger McGee

    I’m a bit confused…

    Companies switch up ad agencies all the time. They come, they go, then back and forth again even.

    How is Palm using a different agency the same as “cutting ties?” That implies they directly had a problem with the agency. Using another agency is pretty typical. They’ll eventually probably use another agency after this current one.

    I didn’t like the commercials, either, but for Palm to try a new agency isn’t exactly a “You’re dead to me!” moment.

    • (The real Jarrett) Jarrett

      You are right, changing the ad company wasn’t the “dead to me” moment. It was their quarterly report this last week or so ago where they announced that they had 500,000 units left in the channel unsold. For those scoring at home here is what happened.

      Palm manufactured 900,000+ phones
      Palm had just about 500,000 unsold at end of quarter.

  • Mike

    I think Crazylegs should mind his business on something Chris was right from the beginning and shouldn’t get so defensive. Josh is just horrible at math and a plain moron since he believes that RIM is so good….Plus if you haven’t noticed RIMS lost its touch over the OS systems since they stayed with old menu styles and a horrible browser.

  • Dragon

    I had a BlackBerry and loved it. Best email, best messaging, best telephony, best battery, and many more great points. I swithed to an iPhone for the large touchscreen and I hate it. The only thing that impresses me about my iPhone is it’s strong web browser capabilit. Iphone’s keyboard stinks, lack of autotext, slow push service, no messaging solution worth a darn (yes I have tried them all and use Beejive), worst telephony of any phone I’ve had. Same network calling the same person from the same locations and thebiphone can’t make a call or drops the call … often. BlackBerry in AT&T never had a problem.

    I love the Palm WebOS and really hope they can hang on, but barring something fantastic I will be ditching my iPhone and going back to a BlackBerry of some sort. I just hope their weblog browser comes out by this fall.

  • D-man

    I didn’t like the ads – too creative for a phone and OS that offer so much functionally. That said, Palm greenlighted everything that happened so the ad agency cannot be blamed for more than not coming up with the right concepts. Palm should have said no until they came up with something.

    I think Palm should open up to user-generated and user-centered content showing the phones in use. People want to know why Palm’s relevant and why buy Palm. How about showing them in real-life.

    The weird campaign never discouraged me from buying Palm, but it never drew me into Palm either.

  • Glenn

    In Modernista defense — I took a peak at their other work which includes Cadillac and Gap and they have done some nice jobs — Just failed miserably for Palm. —- Based on the products that Palm had been releasing it’s very well that this is exactly what kind of advertising they were looking for.

  • Scritz Mcgritz

    Oh noooo! I loved those commercials… they were scary, airy and definitely awkward. The commercial overshadowed the palm many times over, I wanted the talking girl painting more than I wanted the palm pre.

    That commercial was spooky. I loved it.

  • themarketer

    i work for such agency. this tipes of adds are for new, innovative products. they usually target consumers couriosity, but again, only for new products (let’s say as it was the first iphone gen)

  • http://www.bruceasarte.com Bruce

    These ads actually did increase my interest in the Palm products. Not enough to buy one… but given the mobile smartphone market today Palm doesn’t really have much of a shot no matter how innovative the marketing… it is iPhone, Android and to a lesser extent Microsoft’s market… Palm sat on its hands for too long.

    All that said… my 8 year old son will be sad.. he loved singing along with the commercials…

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