As some of you may be aware there has been a thread about Palms recent stock price fluctuations. Over the last couple of days any drops in price have been wiped out by consistent increases. Here is some of the good news.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Palm Inc. shares climbed Tuesday after RBC Capital Markets hiked its price target for the stock, saying Palm has the "special sauce" necessary to help lead the smart phone market.

In a note to investors, RBC analyst Mike Abramsky raised his price target to $25 from $18.

It also states that Palm has challenges in marketing !!! NO *****!!! Get rid of those commericials and get a decent marketing company.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/economy/ap/49203842.html

Full analysis by RBC (with charts and market share predictions for 2012), interesting...

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune....ce=yahoo_quote

Roy of the RBC also responds to user postings in this story

Interestingly he states that Open standards will dominate the market but then goes on to say Apple will dominate in 2012!?

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I think that when all is said and done, the current Palm ad campaign will be seen as a success, possibly even a great success. The Pre girl character has been firmly entrenched and is highly recognizable, and now that the ads have shifted to specific features/benefits people are paying attention, I'm betting. It's a long-term strategy, for sure, but I think that's precisely what Palm needs.

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This is good news indeed.

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Whilst I agree that a long term strategy is needed and that Palm are shifting to the features I have to disagree with your assessment that the girl character has been effective in any way much less being "entrenched"

Even considering the US take a straw poll of how many non Palm, Non techie folk out there know of the Palm and of the advert that promote it and I suspect you would hit a VERY low number.

When this moves to Europe there needs to be more of an "effective and recognisable" branding of the Phone otherwise it will get drowned out with the more mature offerings out there.

Also this is a fast moving market there needs to be an initial and immediate impact. There is nothing in a strategy playbook that says a strategic approach means a slow startup. There is a period where things are fresh and there is great value in using that "fresh and innovative" value early on.

An advert (updated) such as the one Palm put out previously (see the URL in my signature below) would go down very well in Europe and has a catchy tune to continually prompt recollection of the brand. A real successful PR launch is where the song or some other mind prompter becomes popular regardless of the brand and is therefore permanently known as the Palm Pre Song" etc

Everytime you hear the phrase "Hi I'm a PC and I'm a Mac" your mind immediately goes to those funny ads

There are countless tunes (mostly classics) that have been successfully used by PR firms and the songs are now rebranded in people's minds as the X Product Song.

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