Any time any element of an ad distracts from the product, or the ad is so clever that what you remember is the cleverness and not the brand name, you have a failure on your hands.
Either the hand in this ad is a man with long nails (eww) or it’s the Man Hand that freaked out Jerry on Seinfeld.
That’s why I’m filing this Palm ad under ewwww! creepy!
I used to date an actor who also was a hand model. People who model their hands make a lot of money for keeping their hands perfectly still for hours on end, often while laying on their stomachs with a hand dangling over an edge.
Rule One for hand models is to be incredibly well-groomed and rather nondescript. If this weird hand is meant as an attention getter, it’s the wrong kind. It got my attention allright, to the hand, rather than the Palm. And the nails were such a turnoff that I immediately lost interest in what it was holding.
B.L.
First, it is very nice to see others using Seinfeld in their marketing blogs (I use Seinfeld at least once a week in my blog–I think I may have a problem).
Anyway, I have not seen the ad that you are referring to, but I would agree with you that an ad cannot distract from the product (The person in the ad can not have “hooks for hands” either – See, there I go again with the Seinfeld).
The copy, the colors, the layout, etc. must all work in concert to support and build the brand.
Here’s my question to you: If “Man Hand” was not in the ad, would you have even noticed the ad? If not, then Palm has another problem–invisibility.
Great post!
I would have noticed the ad because it had a picture of a hand-held device with the Internet on the screen.
But once I saw the hand, my attention was entirely diverted from the product. And I forgot it was a Palm until I looked at my notes.
Now when I think of them, my first thought is “creepy hand” not “cool device.”
Don’t worry, I won’t use Seinfeld episodes on a regular basis. :>)
Sorry about that — I just added the ad back in. It was dropped when I published earlier today….
That hand is creepy!
I wonder why they would let the hand be a distraction? The Palm is the main attraction, I would think. Maybe there is a market segment of people with creepy hands they are targeting.
Neil – that’s funny!
ann – the post certainly made very little sense when you couldn’t see the hand! oh well, it’s back now.