Bob Pullum, Creative Director

Palm: learning mobile’s potential.

Why is it still relevant to talk about Palm? We did great work on small budgets. It was about knowing what a smartphone was and its future possibilities before the iPhone. We created everything from b-to-b enterprise campaigns to in-store collateral. Although Palm isn't around anymore, the ideas and the experience of being a creative director on their business for 6 years lives on.

Not just a cell phone. A Treo.

The 680 launch campaign generated awareness by demonstrating that Treo does more than the average cell phone. In our research when you showed someone what a Treo could do they wanted one. So that became our campaign- show people what it could do. This was a time before the iPhone so the idea of browsing your favorite websites on your phone was not a well-known concept. To do this we partnered with Amazon, eBay, Google, Fandango, Flickr, The Onion, Orbitz, Sports Illustrated, TiVo, Yahoo!, and Zagat. These partnerships not only gave them exposure, they gave a halo effect to Palm and helped their budget go further.

We wanted to show you what life could be like with a Treo.

‍Interactive outdoor was literally non-existent when the campaign launched. We created interactive bus shelters and wallscapes in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City. It contained a live monitor in place of the Treo screen which displayed canned and dynamic content from such partners as Weather.com and the NYTimes. You interacted with it via SMS short codes which quickly demonstrated how your old phone was now a dinosaur. This won a Bronze Pencil in One Show Interactive. ACD/CW: Adam Lau

Media placements were no accident.

‍Although the campaign included print, online, mobile ads, outdoor placements gave the most context for how great it was to have a Treo smartphone. We looked at every placement the media team had available and made sure a Treo could react to it. It was also important in many placements to show multiple uses. We either had multiple partners near each other or used lenticular printing. Everything drove to onTreo.com where you could learn key Treo 680 product features and discover relevant partner content. ACD/CW: Adam Lau

Palm became Palm. Again.

Palm went through several rebranding exercises when I was overseeing the account. First it was Palm. Then PalmOne. Then back to Palm. At this point Palm had become one with Handspring and it was all about the Treo. We needed to tell the world Palm was back and it was global. We worked with Postpanic in Amsterdam to create this elegant brand film that was featured in the Communication Arts Design Annual. Slide right to see it. ACD/CW: Adam Lau

Beyond banners: nice print.

Working on Palm for 6 years was a hugely transitional time for both the advertising and technology industry. Through many of the early years we did some major print campaigns. The campaigns below were done at the height of Palm's popularity before the dot com crash and then after. The second campaign focuses on product to a completely new target: moms. Both campaigns below were featured in Communication Arts. Campaign #1, AD: Jimmy Ashworth, CD: Scott Stripling Campaign #2: ACD/AD: myself, ACD/CW: Adam Lau

A branding partner.

Post dot-com Palm was a smaller client and one of AKQA's only few at the time. We became their branding partner and played many roles. We not only created advertising but also collateral and the elements to create the collateral. As they continued to grow with the addition of Handspring, our responsibilities did to. We led all the lifestyle photography and drove product library shoots for many years. Photographers: Amanda Marsalis, Sean Murphy