[lnichols]

add that to the fact one of the few tv ads i've seen was last night,,, i think it was tmo selling the Z10 for $99/U.S.,,, 1/2 price after only a couple months,,, ugh,,, to be fair tho, they're incl. the new htc & 1 other phone in the sale...

SEAWARRIOR, the Z10 has been $99 on T-Mobile since launch, and 24 installments of $18. They haven't dropped the price, that is just the way T-Mobile sells phones now. The iPhone 5 is also $99 plus 24 payments of $20.

[Omnitech]

I glanced through the thread titles quickly and thought this said "BlackBerry to set fire to PR firm."

Now that would be a publicity stunt.

Edward Bernays would be proud.

In other news - the first Blackberry ad I've seen that was really impressive is that recent thing about being QNX-powered.

They just better have a handle on the random reboot thing before they bother airing that.

[richardat]

i've been w/ ya the whole time,,, i want frankie's office...

You will have a low bar after your predecessor ;-)

[richardat]

Blackberry seems to have 2 main problems when it comes to marketing/PR. They don't have as much cash to throw around as Apple or Google or Microsoft, first of all.

Secondly, while things have improved, they still have not adapted particularly well to the mass consumer product marketplace, and are still heavily male-centric in both their management and customerbase. This tragic lack of "hipness" and inability to connect with and address the needs of the average user is killing them in the consumer space, and hiring do-nothing figureheads like Alicia Keys isn't helping much either.

As one tech industry writer recently put it, as of Blackberry Live, they are starting to seem like they are re-constituting back to ye-olde pinstripe-suit-ware, and pushing all the corporate angle.

Which is fine as far as it goes, but it's a bit premature to go back to that emphasis when what they really need to do these days is get major mindshare amongst the consumer market first, since that tail is still wagging the enterprise dog, whether they like it or not.

I have called them on this bipolar, unfocused message before! They dont' seem to have a clear course, they will advocate either as their priority depending on the situation (vacillating like a fanboy!). Your phones lack apps people want: well that's because we are about business productivity and serious-minded people (tools not toys 2!).....well why should anyone buy one: because we're new, fun, and exciting...not like boring old Apple!

Of course in reality, one needs both, but if one is going to have a central theme to push, a target market to be the primary first conquest, one should at least have that straight internally, and it doesn't seem like they have that - either internally, or through their marketing. I think this is again because they are simply waiting to see where they can get any kind of results/foothold, but it hasn't helped their image or marketing efforts.

[Omnitech]

Your phones lack apps people want: well that's because we are about business productivity and serious-minded people (tools not toys 2!)

That has nothing to do with "tools not toys", it has to do with the simple fact that the app developers are doing this chicken/egg thing where they won't support a platform until it is wildly popular, but it will never get wildly popular if devs refuse to support it. RIM/Blackberry would be the FIRST ones to trumpet from the mountaintops if they got the top headline end-user apps and games from the other platforms committed to BB10.

And at least in the USA, where I would imagine a disproportionate share of headline app developers are located, there is a real irrational animosity towards Blackberry that goes significantly beyond the simple merits or demerits of the product itself. Google and Apple wield extreme marketplace power here, and because of the massive profits being minted by those companies on a daily basis, there are all sorts of trickle-down impacts in the US marketplace. This includes tech-industry journalists who are loathe to stray too far from the mainstream when those 2 companies all by themselves are responsible for such a large proportion of advertising dollars that their employers use to fund their paychecks.

[kevinnugent]

That has nothing to do with "tools not toys", it has to do with the simple fact that the app developers are doing this chicken/egg thing where they won't support a platform until it is wildly popular, but it will never get wildly popular if devs refuse to support it. RIM/Blackberry would be the FIRST ones to trumpet from the mountaintops if they got the top headline end-user apps and games from the other platforms committed to BB10.

And at least in the USA, where I would imagine a disproportionate share of headline app developers are located, there is a real irrational animosity towards Blackberry that goes significantly beyond the simple merits or demerits of the product itself. Google and Apple wield extreme marketplace power here, and because of the massive profits being minted by those companies on a daily basis, there are all sorts of trickle-down impacts in the US marketplace. This includes tech-industry journalists who are loathe to stray too far from the mainstream when those 2 companies all by themselves are responsible for such a large proportion of advertising dollars that their employers use to fund their paychecks.

Aren't Blackberry always saying that their app developers are paid more than any app developers of any other OS? Wouldn't that make a difference if true?

[Omnitech]

Aren't Blackberry always saying that their app developers are paid more than any app developers of any other OS? Wouldn't that make a difference if true?

I think Blackberry can say all sorts of things, the trick is to get people to pay attention to them.

People have a bad habit of migrating to the most popular thing, no matter how much it sucks.

I spent some years in the retail camera business, late 1970s/early 1980s. Had a friend who was a manufacturer's rep, at the time his major line was Ricoh. At the time, Ricoh was a "2nd tier" camera company. Decent product, perhaps not quite at the same level as the "top" brands (like Canon/Nikon/Pentax/Minolta), but dramatically less popular. Problem was, at the time the margin on the "1st tier" cameras was basically nothing. If a retailer didn't sell a customer a bunch of accessories with a decent markup on them, they basically made nothing on that transaction.

Ricoh on the other hand was a product that not only had more features and better warranty than the competitors at a lower price, but even at that lower retail price it had actual profit margin.

But this friend of mine used to gripe that none of that made any difference to these dealers, all they wanted was to sell the "popular brands", and make $2 per camera or something. No one was suggesting they stop selling those things, just add Ricoh to the mix, train the salespeople how to sell it, and make money.

Hardly any dealers were interested. Too many people are like zombies that don't know how to do anything but take the path of least resistance. Show them a mouse trap that works better, they'll rationalize that they're used to the old mousetraps.

[grumpyaeroguy]

IMHO, there's no way to go but up when it comes to BB PR. The US Z10 launch was a train-wreck, and I think BB missed a good opportunity. BB could take PR and branding lessons from Apple (not that I like Apple)--- but we must admit, it works.

from a post I made in a different thread:

I was in a TMo store the other day just trolling for BB accessories (of which, they had NONE, nada, nothing). The store was clearly being remodelled / reconfigured, and all phones were lined along one wall on their displays, no ryme or reason to it. Looked like a tornado went thru the place.

I asked "what's going on, you moving?" (the whole center of the store was like a pool table, just open space. They said, "no, no, Apple will be in next week and we will be setting up all the displays for the iphone, and they are all going there", pointing to the empty part of the store (90% of the floor space) and waving his hand in a circular motion....

BB: It's called marketing, BRANDING and customer/retailer support (!)
Branding appears to be a foreign, or 4-letter word, at BB right this moment. They ain't got none. The "customer" in this contxt being the CARRIER. IF Apple views the carriers as their CUSTOMERS, and BB views the carriers as their "OUTLET", that may be what's contributing to this issue we look at as "a lack of respect for BB" or "purposely trying to tank BB" ---- which I don't believe.

Some years ago, when nav systems were all the rage, before smartphones became a viable alternative to the GPS device, TomTom went theu a similiar issue in the US, and lost it. I was looking for a particular TomTom model. Went into three stores, all saying we don't have it, don't know if we're going to get it, and heck, haven even talked to a TomTom rep in months. The Garmin guys are thru here 3-4x per week. BTW, have you considered a Garmin?

A lot of it is PR... go BB. Get someone to do a better job for what you're paying.....

[Omnitech]

BB: It's called marketing, BRANDING and customer/retailer support (!)
Branding appears to be a foreign, or 4-letter word, at BB right this moment. They ain't got none. The "customer" in this contxt being the CARRIER. IF Apple views the carriers as their CUSTOMERS, and BB views the carriers as their "OUTLET", that may be what's contributing to this issue we look at as "a lack of respect for BB" or "purposely trying to tank BB" ---- which I don't believe.

Apple has 75,000 employees, RIM has around 12,000, if that - they recently fired 5,000 of them. Apple also operates something like 500 company stores.

There is NO WAY RIM/Blackberry will have, any time soon, the resources Apple has to send a bunch of staff out to every retail store that sells their product, to spruce them up.

Some things should be self-evident.

[grumpyaeroguy]

Apple has 75,000 employees, RIM has around 12,000, if that - they recently fired 5,000 of them. Apple also operates something like 500 company stores.

There is NO WAY RIM/Blackberry will have, any time soon, the resources Apple has to send a bunch of staff out to every retail store that sells their product, to spruce them up.

Some things should be self-evident.

What is not self-evident is doing nothing at all.

What is self-evident is that you have to do something.

I wasn't implying that BlackBerry have 10000 people running around to stores. But, 100 folks, spread out via demographics and region could do a lot, even in a market like the us.

The stores I have been in around here will tell you they get virtually no retailer support at all from BlackBerry .

Sometimes ya gotta spend money to make money .

Let's face it, BlackBerry doesn't have the best rap in the us right now from a branding perspective. A great product alone ain't enough. We get it. But many don't and need to be sold.

Apple proves that every day. They have a mediocre product and succeed at selling the ____ out of them.

Excuses better not be good enough right now for them.

You are correct, of course. But ya gotta bite the bullet a bit too get some lost market share back. That's the way I see it anyway.

Posted via CB10

[Omnitech]

What is not self-evident is doing nothing at all.

There is a term for what you wrote there. It's called "hyperbole".

What an absurd assertion, that Blackberry is doing "nothing".

When people make statements like that, it's truly difficult to take whatever else they have to say seriously.

Blackberry right now is fighting for their survival. They just laid-off 5,000 employees, many of them longtime employees.

If they succeed, the time will come when they can again afford to hire people to sit around burnishing advertising slicks, doing lots of retailer handholding, and perhaps even some bimbos hired to sit around looking pretty at stores since some people like that sort of thing.

In the meantime, I have a feeling they are focusing their resources on product-development, manufacturing, certain key advertising/marketing buys, and the kinds of PR/marketing (ie online/social networking things) that don't cost a lot of money.

One thing Heins has done an outstanding job of during his CEO tenure is cost-control. If he hadn't, BBRY would be in drastically worse shape than they are already in.

[richardat]

That has nothing to do with "tools not toys", it has to do with the simple fact that the app developers are doing this chicken/egg thing where they won't support a platform until it is wildly popular, but it will never get wildly popular if devs refuse to support it. RIM/Blackberry would be the FIRST ones to trumpet from the mountaintops if they got the top headline end-user apps and games from the other platforms committed to BB10.
.

Correct. This is why I gave that as an example of inane reasoning - you misunderstand my post.

[TheScionicMan]

I was in a TMo store the other day just trolling for BB accessories (of which, they had NONE, nada, nothing). The store was clearly being remodelled / reconfigured, and all phones were lined along one wall on their displays, no ryme or reason to it. Looked like a tornado went thru the place.

I asked "what's going on, you moving?" (the whole center of the store was like a pool table, just open space. They said, "no, no, Apple will be in next week and we will be setting up all the displays for the iphone, and they are all going there", pointing to the empty part of the store (90% of the floor space) and waving his hand in a circular motion....

Apple has 75,000 employees, RIM has around 12,000, if that - they recently fired 5,000 of them. Apple also operates something like 500 company stores.

There is NO WAY RIM/Blackberry will have, any time soon, the resources Apple has to send a bunch of staff out to every retail store that sells their product, to spruce them up.

Some things should be self-evident.

I helped with the inspection of some of the iPhone installs at NoCal T-Mo stores. All of the displays are only 8 feet wide and hold 3 phones. They were pretty much the same kind of display that held every other phone in the place, just that they only had iP5s and the others had a mixture.

The display came from a marketing firm and the installs were done by a company contracted by T-Mo. They don't have Apple employees running around doing this stuff.

[bbfan1040]

Source: BlackBerry Parts Ways with PR Firm After 16 Years of Service | TechnoBuffalo

What do you guys think of this?
I personally think it is Frank getting some new people to represent them, I have heard a lot of complaining in these forums about BlackBerry's P.R...

Only one BB Z10 on display at Verizon & AT&T stores in OC CA. But, Verizon now running Z10 TV adds.

[anon(4018671)]

No PR firm can solve the App issue. So I'm not sure what PR or advertising is gonna do if people don't have their Instagram, Netflix, Meetup or what have you. A look at any category leaves a deficiency of apps.

No PR firm can sell something that doesn't exist. The BB10 Experience needs more apps and it doesn't get simpler than that.

Its interesting that Alicia Keys is working for them. QNX also was owned by Harmon International which is a massive manufacturer of home/car audio and pro audio devices. But right now if you were to go to NAMM (National Assoc. of Music Merchants) which is the biggest trade show in music, you won't see BB products being built into products like iPads are. Also I don't think Square is supporting the secure nature of BB10 for accepting credit cards yet. In the same train of thought QNX is in millions of cars but how many car apps are in BBWorld that connect to a car via OBD2 and BT? Its one. Blows my freakin mind!

My point is even though BB makes great phones (I really love the Z10!) I'm pretty sure they still have a perception problem. Without writing pages and pages on this, people still say "they are for business". Whatever that means? So they need to change this app problem. Thor has done a great job focusing on the hyper connected person (those that send lots of messages a day) but BB10 is more powerful than just that. They are also focused on giving developers the APIs that can be used to integrate into other hardware. Of course BB might want to consider buying companies and implement BB10 OS into their products themselves. Partnering is great but then you have to discuss things I also wonder if they have made a module or chip that they can sell to manufacturers so that they can extend their own products' capabilities to smart phones or the cloud.

PR didn't get them into this mess and PR won't get them out.
Can I BBM from my desktop yet? BB Link seems like a great place to start.

[FunGuyLover]

A little off topic, but I don't like the idea of BBM desktop. It kills pin to pin security. Besides, the desktop as we know it won't exist in a couple years. Further to that, when am I ever without my BlackBerry?

Nope, don't want it on the desktop. I like the fact that my BBM messages can only be decrypted on my Z.

Posted via CB10

[jegs2]

Blackberry eyes new advertising firm with up-to-date concepts:

[kdna]

I don't understand the management team at Blackberry. Why not hire a quality firm before you release your so called savoir OS? Blackberry needs to hire someone that understands silicon Valley as well as the consumer market ASAP.

Don't kill my vibe using Tapatalk

I'm based in Silicon Valley. Ask me what BlackBerry has done here to impact perception and build buzz around BB10.