Skip to main content

Maketing 101?

I recently saw a video on you tube which totally trashed Palm Pre. This video was from none other than YouTube starlet ijustine. For those of you who don't know who she is, she is the poor man's Paris Hilton! She starts off by saying how Pre is a pathetic excuse of a competition to iPhone. The she pretends to go shopping for one in Best Buy. Now best buy as we all know, is not a primary phone or phone connections seller and most often than not don't carry a working model. Well that is enough reason for ijustine to start rambling about poor marketing by palm Inc etc... Then she goes to a sprint store and starts talking about how iPhone had a huge line of people braving the cold and rain to buy iPhone. In comparison there is not much fanfare for pre. You might be wondering why the heck am I writing about her video.
Well, the video was so compelling that most of the viewers would have given up the idea of buying a pre and would have felt a sense of failure for not having gone for the cool iPhone.My blog is an effort to highlight some issues with ijustine's tirade.
1) ijustine is not a technical expert to review any device. I believe she doesn't know the difference between a TV and computer.
2) She doesn't have a Sprint connection . Then why the heck is she buying pre?
3) The video looks more like an iPhone advertisement then pre review.
4) All through the video she never once held a working palm pre in her hand nor do we see any.

This I believe is a classic example of stealth marketing by Apple. What is stealth marketing?
Say a company wants to sell a video game. what better way to market it than word of mouth! So they hire an average Joe to sit in a busy cafe or any public place and play the game. And more often than not when we see a guy/girl totally engrossed in something and it appears enjoyable, our curiosity get the better of us. Eventually someone will ask the stealth marketer what it is..and from there the marketing begins!

I believe ijustine is on Apple pay roll. Apple's iPhone is a very impressive product, but it is also one of the most restricted (in terms of music/app authoring etc) platforms. Open source is the wave of the future. I agree that Palm has still a lot of catching up to do but @ $80 with a 2 year all inclusive (data and other happy cr@p) sprint contract which costs about $55 /month, it is by far the most valuable option. With that I will rest my case.

Disclaimer: This is not an ad for Palm or Sprint.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A happy hour called fire drill

We had a fire drill at work today and the experience evoked several memories and questions. When I was in school I had never participated in a fire drill and not because I didn't want to but simply because it was unheard of. Once in a year the fire department would send their personnel to demonstrate the horrors of fire and how to fight it. It used to be a fun day. Everyone would assemble in the play ground and wait in the scorching sun, squatting in the dust (much to the displeasure of mom's who had to take care of the dirt afflicted uniform). To overcome the boredom we would indulge ourselves in a variety of activities like archery (aka pelting stones at other kids), making crude drawings in the dirt or giggling away at everything and nothing! Well the fire fighters would eventually get there and start their demonstration/educations drill. On one such occasion I clearly recall that one of the firemen wanted to play trivia to test our knowledge of fire emergency. So he asked
1 comment
Read more

It's a dog's world

It's been a long time since I wrote and I have been meaning to write for quite some time now. But the million dollar question was what do I write about?!! So after much contemplation and a whole box of cookies I decided to write about dogs, yes you heard it right "DOGS" or rather dogs at work. Now most of your might be wondering whether I'm referring to my co-workers or even better myself, but let me assure you I am talking about the four legged fur balls often called man's best friend. It so happens that my past-employer has a dog friendly workplace and employees are encouraged to bring their pet pooches to work. Well I did know that this was the case and I was even asked by one of my interviewers whether I was allergic to dogs. Well, luckily I wasn't but I was afraid to disclose that I had a mortal fear of dogs owing to a not so pleasant experience in my childhood! I probably was about 8-9 years old when I was chased by one of those community dogs (again, I
Post a Comment
Read more

Executive brain fart

Of late I have read many blogs of Indians who in their endeavor to display their knowledge of the human psyche, have achieved nothing but tarnished the global image of Indians. By this I do not state that Indians are seen in divine light internationally. Like any other person from a myriad of nationalities, we Indians have a certain negative and positive attributes when it comes to work culture, living habits etc... These aforementioned self proclaimed intellectuals cater nothing but to reaffirm the misconceptions held by others. Indians have often been portrayed as corrupt, lazy, lacking work ethics and ignorant of the word punctuality. More people associate Indians with 'Indian Standard Time' (which usually means 10 or more minutes later than the stipulated time). I do not wish to answer everything posted online but I wish to send a message to these people to consider the repercussions of their posts. What is more painful is that young Indians pursuing MBA's and
Post a Comment
Read more