Friday, July 13, 2007

HP ads not cool next to an iPhone



While we're on the topic of iPhones, it occurred to me the other night while watching the All-Star game that, given that the iPhone was a major advertiser on the broadcast, it was almost pointless for Hewlett-Packard to have bought time during the game also for its new spot featuring Petra Nemcova (above). I've gone on record that I'm a big fan of the current HP campaign, and this spot, with the tactful message about Nemcova's Happy Hearts Fund, lives up to the standard, both in terms of production and content to earlier spots featuring Jay-Z and Mark Cuban. However, next to the ads for the iPhone, the commercials for HP suddenly appeared to suffer from diminished cool. Not that Goodby Silverstein's campaign should go away or anything—nor should HP shirk from the competitive technological challenge presented by the iPhone, but for a mere computer company like HP, the juxtaposition to the iPhone during the All-Star Game didn't work in its favor.

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