[Thunderbuck]

I see your point my friend, but when I saw BlackBerry go home on Friday and not log back in till Monday as if this is a 9-5 job that's what prompted me to write this (when Kevin is board and not working he will think of something to post to keep us entertained) I just think they are missing in that part. U made some good points,..... I am a die hard BB fan and don't want BB10 to fail that's why this was written.... Enjoy your BlackBerry 10

Well, see, we get into these involved discussions because we all really care about what happens to RIM. I'm sure you and I both agree that RIM has a lot riding on this, and that the people in the company and on the ground know it best of all.

And here, you finally got down to the point. You identified a specific weakness in their social media strategy, namely that it's only Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. When I think about it, yes, you do have a point there. At the same time, while it would be ideal for them to cover this 24/7, that doesn't mean that their entire marketing strategy is invalidated because they've missed this.

[djrupey]

I don't think BlackBerry is going for a mass consumer audience right off the bat, and I don't think it's an effective use of its marketing dollars to do so. They've spent a lot of time, effort, and money to retain their enterprise market and to gain mindshare among developers.

Part of the problem: BB10 doesn't look radically different than other mobile operating systems. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "Oh, BB10 just rips off Android/iOS/WebOS". It isn't the look of this device that's going to sell it, it's the experience. They actually did "sell the experience" with a high profile ad buy on the New York Times website a few weeks ago, where they took over the site and gave users the chance to navigate through it with a Hub-like interface.

The best, most effective marketing campaign RIM could hope to have is to get as much word-of-mouth as possible. That's not going to be able to really kick into gear until the community can get its hands on phones, and start using them, and start smugly showing our friends and family just how cool they are. Gimmicky "teaser" campaigns will not help build buzz.

Exactly. This is the clue: January 30th. This is the date we have been told that BB10 will be announced to the world. If they have a good marketing plan, everything sanctioned or initiated by RIM up to that date will be a carefully orchestrated "non-campaign" of leaks and teasers, enough to get
those in the know talking about BB10, trying it out officially or unofficially, and virally spreading the news that something exciting is going to happen with Blackberry.

Then on January 30th, the whole world will hear about it officially, and that is when the marketing campaign should step up into a whole new ballgame. Sales of handsets should start within days, with excited buyers having to wait for them to be released, generating news headlines as BB fans queue around the block. Most importantly, BB10 and the phones must work flawlessly.

If after several months, RIM hasn't sold millions of BB10 handsets, advertising and media copy is conspicuous by its absence, and interest in Blackberrys has sunk without trace, well that is when you can justifiably say that RIM got it badly wrong. But on the evidence so far, I don't think so.

I pre-ordered my Z10 today from Vodafone UK. As of today they are not even advertising the handset on their website as "coming soon" but if they do not carry BB10 phones I will eat my hat. So I have got my order in early, whether they like it or not.... so RIM's (lack of?) marketing has certainly worked on me.

[ricocan]

Timing is everything, and once the tension is just right then we'll begin to see what RIM has in store for marketing, as much as I want to see some fireworks in the sky it's not time yet. You start the fireworks to gather peoples attention, if you start too soon they'll soon drift away and it will be hard to get them back. There is nothing to sell over the counter right now so don't be going and shouting to the world, they'll look, not find and it will be hard to get their attention again. (should I say it again in a different way?)

Be sure that they are doing this perfectly, they have no choice. Right now the faithful are watching, listening and scanning for anything they can find on BB10, but only the faithful care, the vast majority of the market aren't faithful (to any one cell phone for that matter) and have somewhat short attention spans (sorry, my opinion only), so don't start until you can deliver.

Be patient, it's coming!! oh, and don't forget YOU are part of their marketing, spread your excitement around, let people know, they'll start noticing the news and articles trickling out.