$264,000 Palm Pre Ad in WSJ
| by PalmWebOS.org on April 20th, 2009 |
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If you had any doubts about Sprint and Palm putting their money where their mouth is in terms of advertising their company-saving device, take a look at their full page ad in the Wall Street Journal. Rumor has it that the full page advertisement costs $264,000.
Here is the ad content for your convenience:
“Welcome to the Now Network:
Population: 49 million
16,000 people are watching stock prices and holding their breath
29,997 people just twittered on Twitter for the first time today
9,002 people just twittered on Twitter for the fifth time today
13,194 people are playing Soduko online
And 1,438 people in an airport are emailing 1,438 people in another airport
Now.”
You might also be interested to know that:
- 1,320 Pre phones would need to be sold at $200 a pop to generate the revenue to replace the advertising investment above. And that is revenue… not profit.
- $4,000 is the cost of each word in the above ad when distributed evenly across the $264,000 investment (66 words… “Sprint” at the top not included)
I think they are leaning a little too heavily on Twitter here, probably doing so because of the recent surge in interest due to Ashton Kutcher, CNN and Oprah Winfrey. But come on… isn’t the reason they stayed away from a markety name like “Instinct” or “Storm” because they wanted the product to speak for itself? This seems like they are letting Twitter speak for the product. And while it might draw more eyeballs it seems kind of tired and boring to me. The Soduko thing is kind of played out, too.
Of course the target audience is folks who read the WSJ many likely older than myself and without Twitter accounts but who probably think that Tweeting, twitting and Twittering is the coolest brand new thing on the planet. Meanwhile, people like me are getting sick of hearing about it and when I heard about the whole Ashton/CNN/Oprah I was part of a probably worldwide collective sigh… and not one of relief.
This ad… worth it or not? Either way, it is good to see Sprint ramping up, I would just like to see some more originality. I like the concept of their new Now! campaigns they just seem a bit unpolished, too trendy and hyper.
Discuss!
[Via bekme.blogspot.com, thanks Brian!]
1. Jason wrote on April 27, 2009
It seems that the writer of this critique of the Pre ad is totally missing the point of the ad. The ad is not supposed to label the product as Twitter friendly or somehow tangentially related to Sudoku. Quite honestly, the author here seems to fail at having an sort of marketing saavy when identifying key markets and demographics. It’s obvious Spring is targeting: Youth-Twitter, Business professionals-email in airport and stocks, Sudoku-anyone that plays games(ie EVERYONE), etc. In fact, in every one of their ads run with the Pre, they have done an exquisite job of trying to relate a typical task for most people to the capability of this phone.
It’s brilliant. However, if you are an iPhone fanboy used to one handed keyboard music with a thunderous voice telling you about apps (and NEVER about the phone) then this was probably too difficult of a marketing campaign for you to figure out. This phone will easily bring many customers back to Sprint along with the eventual and impending iPhone release for Verizon and Sprint in 2010/2011.
2. caphear wrote on May 2, 2009
The point of the ad is to tweak curiosity in this new, state-of-the-art smartphone. They already have the attention of geeks like myself and the writer. In marketing you have to seek other interests and levels.
3. Palm Pre TV Ad Featuring Oversized Facebook | Palm WebOS wrote on May 5, 2009
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