Can a fan-made video save Palm?
Yesterday a video surfaced that might as well have been made by Palm's ad agency. The biggest difference, however, is that this video actually demonstrates how the Palm Pre really works, and as a result, is far better than any videos that Palm has produced to date featuring the Palm Pre.
As my colleague Andrew Nusca points out in his post, this fan-made video gets right to the point, and in my opinion, it delivers its point well.
I can't help but wonder how much of the success or lack thereof of the Palm Pre as of late is because of poor marketing? After all, take a look at what I would consider the "before" and "after". The "before" in this sense being those bizarro commercials teasing the Pre that talked about reincarnation, and the "after" being the one that just surfaced this month, as Palm's stock price continues to tank.
Before:
After:
As you can see, Palm suddenly realized that maybe it should show off what the Palm Pre can do if it really wants to play in the smartphone game this time around. Granted, even the video above doesn't actually show the user interacting with the phone, aside from making a call.
Now take a look at the fan-made video below. As you'll see, it perfectly illustrates what you can do with the Pre, and does it all in 30 seconds.
I remember sitting at the Palm press event when they unveiled the Palm Pre. I thought to myself that I had to have one, even though I had the iPhone in my pocket. By the time they shipped, the market was already interested in other devices. There were still some users interested in the Palm Pre, like the one I waited in line with, but most of them were people that either had a Treo and were looking to stay with Palm, or didn't want to move to another carrier for a different phone.
Now I'm left wondering if people might still be interested in the Palm Pre if the marketing materials can demonstrate the device in a compelling way. Is the market too crowded now with the iPhone and a number of Android-based devices? Does Palm still have a chance?
One thing is for certain, though, the fan that made the above video is about to get poached by an ad agency, if he isn't working for one already.