Palm puts spotlight on new Pre's ease of use
— -- Palm's Treo smartphone, meanwhile, has faded. For fiscal 2009, ended in February, Palm's smartphone sales fell 42%, and revenue fell 72% to $77.5 million.
Palm says it is not looking for the Pre to rival the iPhone. "That has 10% of the market," says Brodie Keast, Palm's senior vice president of marketing. "It makes sense to go after the 90% of the market that doesn't yet have a smartphone."
But Palm will be fighting for attention against the likes of Apple's estimated $100 million a year in global iPhone ads.
To try to put the Palm brand back in consumers' minds, the Pre ad features 1,000 dancers directed by three choreographers, including Sun Yupeng, who helped create the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.
"The Palm brand had waned," Keast says. "It has been perceived as a legacy brand. ... We want to reintroduce the brand to those who may have known us in the past and to a giant new audience."
The message of the ad, by agency Modernista, is ease of use. Actor Tamara Hope sits on a rock in an open field surrounded by circles of dancers. In coordination with their synchronized dance moves, Hope shows some of the phone features.
The idea is that Pre is "a little more human and a little more approachable and about making your life better," says Keast, who would not disclose spending. "This is not really for work or play but for one life with many dimensions."
