What Mr. Chen needs to do tomorrow morning
1. Call T-Mobile, say "you're right, I should have called before I Tweeted, I apologize, look forward to working together in the future. " The timing of this stupid distraction makes me think conspiracy. .
2. Gather the best team of marketers and lock them in a room to develop the ultimate ad campaign to capitalize on the FB/WhatsApp deal. It needs to be out next week. Here are some ideas to get you started :
- Figure out a character who is obviously Facebook. Someone who looks like Zuckerberg? Some blue and white blob? A blue kitten? An Agent looking person with FBEYE (get it?) in white print on a black jacket. I dunno. It has to be someone/thing that people get, can recognize, and isn't stupid.
- run a print campaign with this character looking over the shoulder of an attractive person messaging on a smartphone using a non-branded app that is obviously WhatsApp. The title should be simply, "Worried? " Somewhere is smaller text stating a BBM ad line. About this ad line:
- stick with calling it BB Messenger for iPhone and Android. Sorry folks, the word BlackBerry carries too much negativity
- Suck up a little- we'd love to have you back, or, sorry we're late, or, welcome to our secure world - you get the gist.
The TV ad needs to kick them squarely in the balls. Attractive guy and girl out and about messaging back and forth with FB character looking over their shoulders reading everything and then relaying it like an agent whispering into a lapel mic. First msg is to girl, "hey wanna grab a coffee " and immediately the environment around her is filled with coffee vendors all up in her face - she's shocked and scared. She texts back, "just going to buy some jeans" FB character whispers into mic a environment is filled with irritating jeans ads. The look on her face is. WTF? Guy texts back, "how bout pizza later?" and the girl gets a huge greasy pizza thrown right in her face. Voice over kicks in : "Want some privacy? Get free, secure BB Messenger on iPhone and Android" and then very simple URL and a scannable QR are shown.
Or something like that.
It needs to be tasteful (try to anticipate backlash) , tap the negative fears that people have about privacy and data collection, and it has to be clever with beautiful people.
3. The BBM Team needs to create a WhatsApp contact importer that makes it easy to load users
I have more ideas but need to sleep. The point is, this is a brilliant opportunity to highlight BB's security and put a relevant offer in front of consumers right away while everyone is panicking .
Posted via CB10