In lieu of opening new retail stores, Palm is going a more direct route, opening Palm Pre Experience Centers in two outdoor malls (The Grove and The Americana in LA and Glendale, respectively) this month. The open-air booths will be staffed by Palm ambassadors to give Pre demos and tutorials to passerbys.
With Palm retail outlets closing down before the Pre got its legs up, including one at the Grove, it left only a namesake store at their headquarters in Sunnyvale. The new booths will give them the opportunity to get all the webOS goodness to everyday shoppers, and hopefully give a face to the latest commercials including unique Sprint ads and recent Palm commercials, which were received with mixed reactions. HDTVs will also be hooked up for when giving demos to larger groups.
In addition, Palm hopes to make a statement by sponsoring the annual Summer Concert series at the two upscale malls. The free concert series, beginning this wednesday, will feature performers including Vanessa Carlton, Ashley Tisdale, Michelle Branch, and Gavin Rossdale. This should help get the word out with a bang like Sprint's Nascar sponsorship, although Palm investor Bono ended up siding with Blackberry for U2's 360 tour earlier this year.
Have you ever visited a Palm retail outlet before, and do you think new ventures such as these will be more effective in generating interest in the Pre and webOS?
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Palm and Sprint need to stop trying to be "evocative" and start stating simply and clearly why WebOS and the Pre, in particular, are a positive departure from the norm.
The elegance and power of the OS (multitasking, et al) and the openness of the platform will sell itself if clearly defined.
Remember the early (and highly effective) Apple commercials... white backgrounds, simple statements.
Contrast with the first Infinity commercials, if anyone remembers those... It took the public a while just to figure out they were trying to market a car.