Palm dumps Pre ad agency, T-Mobile offers $350 for iPhones

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Palm this week parted ways with the ad agency that produced its widely panned advertising campaign for the Pre smartphone. And U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile is offering up to $350 for iPhone trade-ins for new customers who switch to the HTC HD2.



Palm, Modernista split



According to Advertising Age, Palm has severed ties with its ad agency, Modernista, and is already talking with other companies about taking over for promotion of its line of WebOS-powered smartphones. Modernista was responsible for the Pre's television commercials since the device launched last year.



The advertising campaign featuring a pale woman showing off the features of Palm's handset was ridiculed on the Internet as "creepy" and "unsettling" by some.



As its advertising campaign fell flat, sales of the Pre and Pixi smartphones were very soft, even with the addition of Verizon Wireless as an official carrier. The Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are available exclusively through Verizon. Palm also has plans to offer two WebOS devices on AT&T's network at some point this year.



Advertising Age noted that Modernista, who represents the National Park Foundation and TIAA-CREF, has fallen on hard times recently.



"This is yet another major setback for Modernista, which lost its biggest account, General Motors' Cadillac brand, late last year," the report said. "Since the carmaker shifted its account to Publicis-backed BBH, New York, Modernista has been forced to cut staff, and in December shuttered its three-year old Amsterdam office."







T-Mobile tries to entice iPhone owners to switch



As revealed by TmoNews, participating T-Mobile dealers are offering as much as $350 towards the purchase of an HTC HD2 through May 19 for iPhone owners who agree to trade in their handset. If the phone is in working condition, it will be eligible for at least $100 in credit towards the purchase of HTC's new big-screen handset powered by Windows Mobile.



The HD2 was specifically cited in Apple's lawsuit against HTC, filed in early March. Apple has accused the Taiwanese smartphone maker of violating 20 iPhone related patents. Though most of the accused handsets run Google Android, some Windows Mobile phones, including the HD2, were named by Apple for their use of hardware decoders.



As T-Mobile hopes to court some iPhone owners, some have speculated that Apple could make its handset available on the carrier's network this year. A potential jump to T-Mobile, even though it is the smallest of the four major wireless carriers in the U.S., would be a simple move for Apple because both AT&T and T-Mobile operate GSM networks. Though T-Mobile's high-speed 3G connectivity operates on a unique 1700MHz spectrum that is incompatible with the current iPhone, the addition of that frequency to a future hardware model would be much simpler than adding compatibility with Verizon or Sprint's CDMA networks.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 48
    About time. Those ads were absolutely horrific.
  • Reply 2 of 48
    josh.b.josh.b. Posts: 353member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    As revealed by TmoNews, participating T-Mobile dealers are offering as much as $350 towards the purchase of an HTC HD2 through May 19 for iPhone owners who agree to trade in their handset. If the phone is in working condition, it will be eligible for at least $100 in credit towards the purchase of HTC's new big-screen handset powered by Windows Mobile.




    Wow. $350? My take on it that they see little opportunity to sell these phones otherwise. It appears that they can't even give them away for free! Instead, they have to pay people to take them.



    And I wonder where they will sell those used iPhones. Do they have a deal to sell them overseas?
  • Reply 3 of 48
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Josh.B. View Post


    Wow. $350? My take on it that they see little opportunity to sell these phones otherwise. It appears that they can't even give them away for free! Instead, they have to pay people to take them.



    And I wonder where they will sell those used iPhones. Do they have a deal to sell them overseas?



    The HD2 has been sold out everywhere it's offered...



    I imagine they'd just crunch the iphones into parts for recycling.
  • Reply 4 of 48
    spotonspoton Posts: 645member
    Quote:

    Palm has severed ties with its ad agency, Modernista



    Is that why the stock jumped yesterday?



    Like a desperate lunge for the rim as it slowly circles the flushing bowl of bankruptcy?
  • Reply 5 of 48
    tundraboytundraboy Posts: 1,884member
    These art house style ads may get rave reviews from the more pretentious ad industry critics but they don't sell product. This lesson was learned long ago when Infiniti came out with those stupid tree-in-a-meadow ads. Apparently the folks over at Palm were playing hooky when the topic was covered in class. How much of their scarce capital did Palm blow on that feckless ad campaign? They could have asked any of us whether those ads were effective and we'd give them the right answer for a thousandth of their ad budget.
  • Reply 6 of 48
    justflybobjustflybob Posts: 1,337member
    Golly gosh.



    Where can I stand in line for this? NOT!
  • Reply 7 of 48
    t-Mobile should really worry about either supporting the 3G frequency the iPhone uses or getting Apple to support their frequency and start selling them unlocked.
  • Reply 8 of 48
    8corewhore8corewhore Posts: 833member
    Good luck with that. Hahaha
  • Reply 9 of 48
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by 8CoreWhore View Post


    Good luck with that. Hahaha



    Very true. Being a US consumer is all about being owned by a corporation.
  • Reply 10 of 48
    bdkennedy1bdkennedy1 Posts: 1,459member
    You can't cover up the Pre's problems with a white girl. That Pre commercial could be taken subliminally to consumers as Palm turning it's back on customers with that model turning her back to the camera.



    iPhone ads are successful because they showcase the product, not a model or any cheesy special effects..
  • Reply 11 of 48
    neilmneilm Posts: 985member
    I always liked those rather ethereal Pre ads. Creepy? I don't see why.



    It's Palm's phone I didn't want, not their ads. And whatever the feeling about those ads, there were millions of other people who don't want the Pre either. Ultimately it's all about the product.
  • Reply 12 of 48
    chronsterchronster Posts: 1,894member
    kind of old news already but whatever.



    One question that I had though is what does TMobile do with the iphones?



    Also, it's about time Palm dumped that stupid ad agency. Pre users have even taken it upon themselves to make homemade commercials because the Pre ads were so horrible.



    With better advertising, the Pre would be doing much better. It's a very capable device, and WebOS is proving to be a great platform.
  • Reply 13 of 48
    chronsterchronster Posts: 1,894member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Josh.B. View Post


    Wow. $350? My take on it that they see little opportunity to sell these phones otherwise. It appears that they can't even give them away for free! Instead, they have to pay people to take them.



    They aren't paying people to take the phones, they are paying iphone users. If TMobile payed me to use the HD2, I would.



    My issue with TMobile is coverage. Their customer support was AMAZING, but coverage was bad. I had heard rumors, however, that places in new york city see upwards of about 10mbps download speed on tmobile's network with the HD2, so if I lived there I'd have one lol.



    The HD2 rocks. It just needs to be on all the networks to do well, like the TP2.
  • Reply 14 of 48
    josh.b.josh.b. Posts: 353member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    kind of old news already but whatever.



    One question that I had though is what does TMobile do with the iphones?



    Also, it's about time Palm dumped that stupid ad agency. Pre users have even taken it upon themselves to make homemade commercials because the Pre ads were so horrible.



    With better advertising, the Pre would be doing much better. It's a very capable device, and WebOS is proving to be a great platform.



    The Boston subway system is PLASTERED with Pre ads. I wonder if their limited budget has made them decide to target only certain locations.



    My guess is that their new agency will keep Palm on a very tight leash WRT their invoices.
  • Reply 15 of 48
    dreyfus2dreyfus2 Posts: 1,072member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpotOn View Post


    Is that why the stock jumped yesterday?



    Like a desperate lunge for the rim as it slowly circles the flushing bowl of bankruptcy?



    Actually it jumped because of rumors that Lenovo intends to buy them... The heavy sales activity starting almost ahead of the rumor is a bit fishy though. Something is rotten there.
  • Reply 16 of 48
    josh.b.josh.b. Posts: 353member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    The HD2 rocks. It just needs to be on all the networks to do well, like the TP2.



    The phone itself is incredible. The OS is a lame duck, however.
  • Reply 17 of 48
    jdsonicejdsonice Posts: 156member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Josh.B. View Post


    The phone itself is incredible. The OS is a lame duck, however.



    I think the phone is already at end of life and is running an older version of Windoze. When WinCrap 7.0 is released this phone will be obsolete.
  • Reply 18 of 48
    souliisoulsouliisoul Posts: 827member
    If I was still living in USA and actually this applies to India, there are too many different variations of the HTC phone in the market and as soon as one carrier releases a version, another comes and it is suppose to be better or offer different features. I am not talking upgrade model, but basically the same phone marketed by different carrier or company, but it is basically the same phone.



    i will stick with my iPhone 3GS until another company can match simplicity and overall functionality, I am not bitting at these deals anytime.
  • Reply 19 of 48
    buzdotsbuzdots Posts: 452member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post




    The advertising campaign featuring a pale woman showing off the features of Palm's handset was ridiculed on the Internet as "creepy" and "unsettling" by some.




    She was probably the girlfriend of someone at the ad agency... keep that money "in house"



    Quote:

    You can't cover up the Pre's problems with a white girl.



    LOLOLOLOL
  • Reply 20 of 48
    boogabooga Posts: 1,082member
    Quote:

    If the [iPhone] is in working condition, it will be eligible for at least $100 in credit towards the purchase of HTC's new big-screen handset powered by Windows Mobile.



    LOL! Good luck with that one. Trade in an iPhone for a Windows Mobile device? Never going to to happen. If you gave me the phone and service free for a year I don't think I'd trade in an iPhone for Windows Mobile.
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