Brand Republic is reporting that Palm is attempting to make a comeback as they've lost their way in the brand stakes against RIM and Apple. The BlackBerry Storm and the iPhone have both been seen in lots of advertising lately. I've seen countless iPhone 3G commercials and have been seeing a new BlackBerry Storm commercial lately too.
According to Brand Republic, the BlackBerry Storm has been in the headlines of technology pages of the national press saying that it's a challenger to the iPhone. Vodafone has the exclusive network rights to the Storm in the UK, and they're spending like £6m on a prominent ad campaign for it.
But Brand Republic says that Palm is planning to fight back and win some ground in the European market. Palm hired Simon Lloyd as Senior Director, EMEA Marketing. Lloyd was the former Nokia UK marketing director, and joined Palm earlier this month.
Brand Republic reports that Lloyd is planning to use creative agency RKCR/Y&R, which picked up the pan-European business last year. Lloyd also plan to use other agencies across Europe to cover digital, retail and experiential marketing activity.
From the Brand Republic article:
When it comes to the forthcoming agenda for Palm, Lloyd is pledging to better engage consumers through stronger retail marketing and digital activities, in conjunction with key creative work from RKCR/Y&R. As an initial step, Palm is appointing its first formal roster of agencies to bring together above-the-line activity with a below-the-line marketing push.
I sure hope that Palm does gain some market ground in Europe. They've been needing that for a long time. Ed Colligan has mentioned that in some of the quarterly financial conference calls.
The article also says that Palm plans to bring imaginative consumer activity to focus on new products. Hmmm.... that sounds interesting. I can't wait to see what that's all about. I wonder if we'll be seeing some more of those kiosks in malls and on the streets?
You can read the full article here.
