Palm Pre viral

[mobileman]

Originally Posted by meyerweb

You'd be surprised at just how effective viral marketing is. Millions of people watch u-bube every day, and forward email links to their friends, who forward it to theirs, and post the linke on forums (like this one, but also on forums for totally unrelated subjects). Companies as big as Ford and Coke do viral these days.

And it's cheap. Figure 10K for the actor, and another 50 to 100K for the total production costs, and Palm can get exposure to millions of people for next to nothing, compared to the $10s of millions a big national TV campaign costs.

If this were the ONLY advertising Palm and Sprint were doing, I'd agree with you, but there's no evidence of that. To spend a tiny bit of money on alternative marketing strategies makes a lot of sense.

If the Pre is as good as we all think it is (and certainly Palm think it is), let the Pre sell itself. This other stuff is stupid and a waste. Put out high quality produced videos showing some of the Pre's unique features. Show us why the Pre is better than other phones on the market. This is the stuff that will make people want to wait for the Pre. All this other stuff is just getting annoying.

[Syphon]

One thing I don't get.
Why/How was this info leaked? Palm has been super secretive lately. They managed to keep the Pre under tight lips until CES.

How hard is it for them to keep a casting call discreet? Heck, they didn't even need to label it & put all that information up. They could have just placed a fake general ad that will attract that same kind of actor they're searching for. Once the actor arrives, Palm or the agency tell him the real job. If they agree, he gets it. If not, he signs a NDA. Simple.

Also, if this is real...What is going to stop the media from doing a little Google research & finding out that it's all a prank? Wouldn't this viral marketing thing backfire on Palm?

Look at how it turned out for Sony:
1) All I want for Christmas is a PSP viral-marketing campaign
2) http://www.edge-online.com/news/sony...oorly-executed

[Twisted-D]

I think that a Viral Ad campaign has to have an element of the unknown about it, for example not knowing if this guy is for real or an actor.

Now that we all know about the campaign I for one am going to view it as somebody being paid $10000 to act like a member of this forum.

I think the only way this will still work is if they make each spot genuinely funny/interesting

[samkim]

So does Palm end up giving this guy a Pre at the end of the campaign? If so, I think this is a great opportunity for a Pre fan to score a free Pre. Just start your own Pre protest and try to steal this campaign's thunder. Just get enough attention, and it'll be hard for Palm to reward one protester and not the other.

[asforme]

Dude, if that's the guy then palm better hurry up and release the phone. He might get ****ed off and create a GUI In visual basic to track their IP address.

[meyerweb]

Originally Posted by mobileman

If the Pre is as good as we all think it is (and certainly Palm think it is), let the Pre sell itself. This other stuff is stupid and a waste. Put out high quality produced videos showing some of the Pre's unique features. Show us why the Pre is better than other phones on the market. This is the stuff that will make people want to wait for the Pre. All this other stuff is just getting annoying.

I'm sorry, but you just don't get it. Do you think the iPhone sold in record numbers ONLY because it had Apple's name on it? No, even with the name, Apple has still spent hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising for the iPhone, and continues to advertise it heavily today.

Crackberry, AT&T, Coke, Pepsi, you name it. If you want your product to sell to the mass market, you've got to advertise. Otherwise you're just lost in the noise. And advertising these days takes many, many forms. Viral marketing on the web, "non-ads" on YouTube, product placement on TV shows and in movies (saw a Treo on "Mentalist" last night), handing out freebies so famous people are seen using your phone. Even paying people to carry and ostentatiously show your device in trendy hot spots, where the gliterati hang.

Most of the buyers of phones don't subscribe to forums like this, but they do watch TV, and they do watch You Tube. It take money to get their attention. It doesn't matter what geeks like us find interesting, or what videos of the Pre we see here, the millions that Palm needs to sell to won't see it.

[mobileman]

Originally Posted by meyerweb

I'm sorry, but you just don't get it. Do you think the iPhone sold in record numbers ONLY because it had Apple's name on it? No, even with the name, Apple has still spent hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising for the iPhone, and continues to advertise it heavily today.

Crackberry, AT&T, Coke, Pepsi, you name it. If you want your product to sell to the mass market, you've got to advertise. Otherwise you're just lost in the noise. And advertising these days takes many, many forms. Viral marketing on the web, "non-ads" on YouTube, product placement on TV shows and in movies (saw a Treo on "Mentalist" last night), handing out freebies so famous people are seen using your phone. Even paying people to carry and ostentatiously show your device in trendy hot spots, where the gliterati hang.

Most of the buyers of phones don't subscribe to forums like this, but they do watch TV, and they do watch You Tube. It take money to get their attention. It doesn't matter what geeks like us find interesting, or what videos of the Pre we see here, the millions that Palm needs to sell to won't see it.

You need to learn to read. I am saying they should advertise like crazy on tv and the internet. Show the damn phone, not this viral garbage. Who is the audience for these viral ads?......People that already know about the Pre, or people who do not?

[mikah912]

Originally Posted by mobileman

You need to learn to read. I am saying they should advertise like crazy on tv and the internet. Show the damn phone, not this viral garbage. Who is the audience for these viral ads?......People that already know about the Pre, or people who do not?

I...mostly agree with you. So weird to say that.

"Crazy" TV ads are mostly a non-starter because national TV ad buys - even in this economy - are likely at the top of Palm's promotional range.

A robust print campaign would be more affordable. Either would be better than a "viral" campaign, IMHO. Just having the Pre appear here and there doesn't mean much because every carrier is blanketing the world with ads for "messaging" phones that look similar and have slide-out keyboards. They've gotta sell what the Pre can actually DO.

In response to your earlier questions, I definitely think they should have WAY more "Meet the Pre" videos up at this point. Once a week is a bit much, but every 2-3 weeks is more than reasonable. And even if the launch is June 7 or even June 29, the veil of secrecy and lack of hands-on with outsiders has to STOP in the next 15-20 days.