[Evan_Cooper]

Whoever is currently in charge of Blackberry's marketing, should be fired. I've seen barely any commercials here in the U.S. and they are all very forgettable.

I am still baffled on their strategy of paying huge bucks for their lame Superbowl commercial. It was nothing innovating and looked like any other gadget commercial, which is ironic because Blackberry is unlike any other phone on the market these days.

I had a Blackberry during (in my opinion,) the company's prime. I got an 8800 my Freshmen year of high school (2007) and then had a variation of the Bold until the iPhone 4 came out (2010.) Everyone and their mother had a Blackberry during that time. I think a lot of it had to do with their marketing and advertisement campaigns.

RIM was able to focus on both business class and the mass market (including teenagers.) I think their commercials and celebrity influence had a major impact for the latter. There wasn't a celebrity who didn't have a Blackberry device during that time, kind of like the Sidekcik (circa 2004-2005.) I know that a celebrities still sport a Blackberry device to this day, but it is not made as nearly a big of a deal as it was.

The advertisements were also really great during the (2007-2010) period. It showed every day people, music producers, musicians, business(wo)men. They had everyone catered to. Now, it just seems sloppily across the board.

I think the company is clearly struggling on which market to grasp with BB10 and it's obvious that neither are interested. Hell, a lot of businesses are still sporting Legacy devices. I think that they just need to focus on one demographic and then work their way across the board from there.

I'd really like to hear your all's opinions on Blackberry's past and current marketing strategy.

Also, take a look at how awesome these commercials were. They make me WANT one just watching them.

[anon721037]

Totally agree, thanks for the trip down memory lane,

[BroncoVAL]

wow the "Love what you do" ad was great!
i love the off-the-wall humour (when Diplo passes by strangers waving his phone saying it's a blackberry!") i wish they could make some great ads like that one for the Passport !

[ajst222]

What ad and marketing strategy? OP, I also find it alarming that they seem to have none. My personal favorite BlackBerry commercial would be this:

Simple, elegant, and gets the message across quickly and efficiently

[ajst222]

Verizon also had a good BlackBerry Tour 9630 commercial of their own, which was my first BlackBerry. However, I wasn't a huge fan of the "Love what you do" commercials, and I CERTAINLY wasn't a fan of the "Be Bold" campaign. That was a joke. BlackBerry was trying to hold onto something that everyone knew they couldn't hold onto as the market was changing. Very out of touch

[bluetroll]

A marketing strategy for business to business is quite different than business to consumer.

Posted via CB10

[Dave Bourque]

Why would they start marketing this early with no new products for the US....

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.3247

[anon721037]

Why would they start marketing this early with no new products for the US....

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.3247

To get people excited ,

[AnimalPak200]

To get people excited ,

They can't afford to get people with a 30-second attention span and even shorter retention period... "excited."

If they ever advertise it will only be after they have at least one product that is well received by "the media." And ad merely triggers someone to think about it, and find out more about it... if they do that right now, all a prospective buyer will find is an overwhelmingly neutral-to-negative (bordering on derisive/ridiculing) sentiment.

Don't ask me how they will change that,.. maybe the Passport will do it,.. but all I know is straight up marketing right now would be a waste.

Posted via CB10

[anon721037]

Well apple samsung and other companies advertise al the time. Maybe they are just wasting money.

Posted via CB10

[Ment]

Well apple samsung and other companies advertise al the time. Maybe they are just wasting money.

Posted via CB10

They put out new flagship models year or every quarter if you're Samsung.

[anon721037]

Well so does blackberry, just not as frequent cause there trying to get it right. My Z30 is probably the only smart phone I've owned this long. I've had it from day of release and I still live it, I think when they have three or four really solid devices is when they will really start to push.

Posted via CB10

[BroncoVAL]

Why would they start marketing this early with no new products for the US....

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.3247

Even if they were to introduce it later in the USA I don't see why they couldn't start a marketing campaign in Europe and other parts of the world at 60 days from its launch ? USA doesn't seem to be their priority anymore (and it's strategically right ...for now)
Maybe not 60 days but let say one month before to keep the buzz on the company and get people used with the idea that BlackBerry is still selling phones (because for the first BB10 devices there was nothing at all here in Italy and only those who wanted one making their own research on internet could have known what actually was BB10 ! )
Blackberry needs visibility, they must inform the consumers and you can't do that only on the launch day and for only few days.

Posted via CB10

[Ghyss8888]

Excited about what ? How many threads have we read about some carrier removing BlackBerry phone display.
You'll have to be patient. BlackBerry doesn't have Samsung type money to advertising this early. They will be basically re launching bb10 to the market. This time around they a unique new phone, 10.3 and a amazon app store to help them push the phones.

We'll have to wait till Sept to how BlackBerry pushes this out.

Posted via CB10

[Evan_Cooper]

Why would they start marketing this early with no new products for the US....

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.3247

I wasn't trying to suggest that they start their campaign this early. I am just expressing my concern towards how the company has barely marketed any of their products over the past 4 years.

The fact that they're coming out with a phone this fall titled the "Blackberry Classic" opens up a world of great marketing ideas. Also a term like "Classic" could bring the company down even further. I believe that if they don't market this upcoming phone at all, then it will tank. They need to be adamant on showing how this phone is the root of Blackberry, but very forward at the same time.

[early2bed]

JC has stated that he is looking to sell about 10 million phones per year to be profitable. That doesn't leave much room for ad spending. There's just not that much to be gained from spending a ton of money advertising these two new phones to consumers. One is a retro phone with styling that smartphone consumers have been moving away from for several years and the other is an extra-wide that most people aren't going to consider. So, don't expect much consumer-focused advertising.

[Hai Bo]

I agree that BB should start marketing for the handsets early. BES 10 can be a quiet B2B marketing, but as many are going with BYOD, purchasing which handset is no longer companies' sole decision.
BB can't pay for big ads like Apple or SS, but some more leaks won't hurt. If Passport could get to the news room after JC showing the new handsets, BB can surely keep the discussion going. Seed the forums, start more discussion, argument, create contradicting rumors, throw out more leaks, ect. Just keep the conversation going to get the name across.

[Solar 77]

Whoever is currently in charge of Blackberry's marketing, should be fired. I've seen barely any commercials here in the U.S. and they are all very forgettable.

I am still baffled on their strategy of paying huge bucks for their lame Superbowl commercial. It was nothing innovating and looked like any other gadget commercial, which is ironic because Blackberry is unlike any other phone on the market these days.

I had a Blackberry during (in my opinion,) the company's prime. I got an 8800 my Freshmen year of high school (2007) and then had a variation of the Bold until the iPhone 4 came out (2010.) Everyone and their mother had a Blackberry during that time. I think a lot of it had to do with their marketing and advertisement campaigns.

RIM was able to focus on both business class and the mass market (including teenagers.) I think their commercials and celebrity influence had a major impact for the latter. There wasn't a celebrity who didn't have a Blackberry device during that time, kind of like the Sidekcik (circa 2004-2005.) I know that a celebrities still sport a Blackberry device to this day, but it is not made as nearly a big of a deal as it was.

The advertisements were also really great during the (2007-2010) period. It showed every day people, music producers, musicians, business(wo)men. They had everyone catered to. Now, it just seems sloppily across the board.

I think the company is clearly struggling on which market to grasp with BB10 and it's obvious that neither are interested. Hell, a lot of businesses are still sporting Legacy devices. I think that they just need to focus on one demographic and then work their way across the board from there.

I'd really like to hear your all's opinions on Blackberry's past and current marketing strategy.

Also, take a look at how awesome these commercials were. They make me WANT one just watching them.

Thanks for sharing these ads! I hope one day BlackBerry can again provide more priority for consumer based ads as they are really aspirational. Watching them made me want to get the devices.

Given their focus on enterprise now though, I'm not expecting them to release similar ads like these soon. Maybe next year?

Posted via CB10

[nabil114]

I think they do not have the money to do it.

[BBUniq01]

Excited about what ? How many threads have we read about some carrier removing BlackBerry phone display.
You'll have to be patient. BlackBerry doesn't have Samsung type money to advertising this early. They will be basically re launching bb10 to the market. This time around they a unique new phone, 10.3 and a amazon app store to help them push the phones.

We'll have to wait till Sept to how BlackBerry pushes this out.

Posted via CB10

Yes, with John Chen at the helm lets see what his strategies are. Crossing fingers.

My Z10 - an extension of me

[Mark Mutz]

Posted via CB10

[alexbe09]

Maybe BlackBerry should kinda follow Buick and ad statements like "is that a BlackBerry?" "no way that's not a BlackBerry" and "yes yes that's definitely a BlackBerry". Every time I show someone my BlackBerry z30 they are impressed with the BlackBerry 10 experience and have no idea BlackBerry is still making phones let alone has a new OS

Posted via CB10

[joeldf]

Actually, BlackBerry had already fired their Chief Marketing Officer, Frank Boulben, last November. It is widely known that he totally bungled the BB10 launch.

As far as I know, that position has not been filled.

And, if you want people to get "excited" for something, here in the US, you can't make noise about it any farther out that 1 week before actual launch. Longer than that, and we just lose interest and are already looking to the next thing.

Even Apple makes formal announcements only the day before a big launch. They officially announce the announcement day several weeks ahead of time, but that's about it. All other news about Apple products come from tech blog "insider leaks" months ahead of any official company talk.

I don't think that BlackBerry should say a word about any new phone until at least two weeks before actual release in any particular region. That includes the US. Even if that means we won't hear about anything for 3 months after the rest of the world. Look how long it took between the official announcement of the Z10 in New York and it's eventual release in the US. It was 2 months. That may not seem like much, but while the rest if the world was already buying the phone, interest died off in the US real fast. Competition was announcing their phones in the meantime and the Z10 was not available, so interest quickly turned to other phones. By the time the Z10 was finally available, no one cared. The big news was how "late" the Z10 was to market.

Of course, it didn't help that BlackBerry provided almost zero carrier training and support for the phone. But that was another issue.

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