Remember those very first Palm Pre Ad commercials you wish you had never saw? Or the ones which simply cause you to stop and think "What on earth were they thinking when they came up with this? Well, it seems we may have finally found the answer. Sonrioz in the forums posted where he thinks the inspiration for the early Palm Ad Commercials came from and, well, we can’t say Sonrioz is crazy on this one.

Cue Sega’s Promotional video released in 1995 of the Sega Saturn. A video, which well, is described as a "mish mash of jarring confusing images". What’s relevant here however, is the first 38 seconds or so of the video, Déjà vu anyone?

Videos after the break!

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The webOS promotional video from AT&T’s Palm Pre product page we linked to last Thursday has hit "The YouTube" and the blogosphere has weighed in: they like it! They really like it! 

Imagine: an advertisement for a product that actually shows some actual features of said product. We don’t know if Palm or AT&T actually intend to release what we’re seeing in the above on television (naturally AT&T can’t comment), but we’d be happy if they did. 

Thanks to everyone that sent this in!

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If we had to pick just one cause behind the failure of the Palm Pre to really catch on with the general public, it’d have to be that increasingly bad advertising from ad firm Modernista that tried and failed to introduce webOS to the world. We won’t link you to them to refresh your memory – you don’t want that. What we will link you to is a report from AdAge: the relationship between Palm and Modernista is over.

Palm is, quite obviously, now in the market for a new ad partner. The new partner will be working with a Palm that has lost a lot of momentum in recent months and has tons of excess inventory to move. Modernista’s ads for Palm have improved recently, so we can’t help but wonder if the parting of ways is more over money than anything else.

Several months ago Cadillac also dumped Modernista, a move that came as part of GM’s restructuring and an effort to cut costs. Modernista is a small independent firm with only a few major clients, and thus charges more than some of their larger Madison Avenue competitors. For their part, Palm has already shifted their focus to point-of-sale advertising (in-store ads and training for store staff) and cut back on expensive television advertising, leaving that to the carriers instead.

[via: PreCentral sister site TreoCentral]

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Those ads that we here at PreCentral.net and the Twitterati find creepy and disturbing — they appear to be working amongst the general public.  So says HCD Research, who did a "national Media Study" with 305 viewers whose emotional response was more "Happiness" and "Inspiration" (26% and 25%, respectively) and less "Distrubing" and "Skepticism" (9% and 18%).

The ad shown to the viewers was the "Bing" ad, above.  Sample-size aside, we’re wondering what the response to the "Crazy" ad would be – or even worse, the response to the unmitigated horror of the "Juggler."

In any case, it’s a little piece of vindication for Modernista, who put the ads together for Palm – 67% found the ad at least somewhat effective.

Go get your stats on at MediaCurves or grab the PDF.

Thanks to Manny for the tip! Article updated to clarify that this was more of a "Media Study" than a "Survey" or Poll.

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There has been a lot of noise lately about the Palm Pre TV commercials from Palm. Well, someone had to defend them, right? Gary Koepke, co-founder and executive creative director at Modernista – the agency behind the ads – did just that.

The campaign features actress Tamara Hope speaking directly to the camera in near-robotic tones [...]

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Palm’s been teasing it for a few days now, and they’ve finally posted their first ad for the Palm Pre, titled “Flow” and directed by feature film director Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall).

The ad was put together by ad agency Modernista!, who has done work for Cadillac, BusinessWeek, Converse, Napster, and Product(RED) amongst others. Flow was shot in and around the Chinese cities of Beijing, Zhengzhou, Dengfeng, and Kunming. The guys in orange you see are over 1,000 martial arts dancers from the Shaolin Kung Fu School in Dengfeng. Used here to show how your life and the Palm Pre experience ‘flow’, these talented young dancers previously performed in the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The woman we see here – ‘Anima’ – will be a recurring character in Palm’s Pre ad campaign, which will focus on the phone’s ability to anticipate the user’s needs.

Check out Palm’s making-of video after the break, plus get the exclusive first details on Palm’s upcoming Pre ad campaign.

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As you may recall, the ad campaign kicked into viral mode a week ago with Palm issuing an invitation via their Facebook and Twitter pages to watch the yesterday’s premiere of the ad, along with a series of behind-the-scenes and making-of videos about the ad. Flow will go live today on Palm.com, as well as on various social-networking and video-sharing websites.

Even though the Pre is going on sale on Saturday, June 6, Palm’s ad campaign won’t kick fully into gear for a full two weeks after that on June 21 with an expensive homepage take-overs of YouTube (the #3 website worldwide, serving up more than 100 million video views a day), AOL.com, and Wired.com. Palm will also produce exclusive content for YouTube and will advertise its content integration on websites like the New York Times and Pandora.

June 22nd will mark the Pre’s first foray into television advertisements, outside of the brief un-credited appearances in Sprint’s Now Network commercials. Palm will focus on “in-season” primetime broadcast and cable shows such as Southland on NBC, Numb3rs on CBS, USA Network’s Burn Notice, and Mad Men on AMC, among others. Palm is also planning on making extensive use of outdoor digital advertisements, including ad space in airports, coffee shops, and various high-traffic office buildings.

So there you have it, the Palm Pre ad campaign in a nutshell. Be sure to check back with PreCentral regularly for more on the Pre’s release, marketing, and other developments surrounding Palm.

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