[Gator99]

I'd like to kick off a question for the armchair marketing guru's. How do you sell a phone that few users seem to know about, or has abandoned due to lagging tech features? Ideas might even include a free trial- who knows?Please keep comments constructive- the whining and complaining section can be found elsewhere .

Sent from the future on my Z10.

[imz]

Step 1) You hire a music celeb as a global creative director who tweets about BB using an iPhone.
Step 2) Keep hiring known names to do Keep Moving Projects, where videos on Youtube reach a few thousand views (alicia keys videos below 5,000)
Step 3) Keep talking up mobile computing at every press conference and earnings call, about interconnecting multiple devices using the QNX micro kernel, devices talking to each other automotive cars to medical equipment, EXCEPT, the devices WILL NOT be able to communicate with the Playbook, the only OTHER QNX powered device [after vehicle head units] (f**k me the irony there)
Step 4) Spend millions on marketing BB10, once the term is embedded in peoples mind a year later, launch an OS7 device
Step 5) Carry on pi$$ing off the loyal customer base

BBRY should hire me

Sorry these weren't constructive, and this post deserves to be deleted

[newcollector]

You pour money into feature and benefit commercials, into point of purchase displays and spiffs for salespeople (win a trip, win bonus, etc). You run the keep moving Vans all over the USA. Every major city and you hit the local morning news/info programs on local TV/radio.

You pay major app developers to produce the must have app that everyone is raving about on other platforms.

You could do most of this for less than the useless BlackBerry artsy commercial on the Super Bowl and the other non feature and benefit adds they have been running.

Posted via CB10 via my Z10

[BBSpring]

I'd like to kick off a question for the armchair marketing guru's. How do you sell a phone that few users seem to know about, or has abandoned due to lagging tech features? Ideas might even include a free trial- who knows?Please keep comments constructive- the whining and complaining section can be found elsewhere .

Sent from the future on my Z10.

I'd love to jump into this one. And for context. I am not an armchair Guru. I am a partner at an ad agency. I even called BBRY to offer help with the brand two yrs back when it became apparent that people ( USA) were bashing the brand.

It is very hard to sell or even give away a product of brand out of favor. People want popular associations, everyone knows and subscribes to that. So where do you start with BBRY? Repair. Repair what?? The reputation.

Old tech, old hardware, always late, etc etc. Apple was not able to sell computer en masse until two things happened 1) The brand was seen as innovative, cool 2) They adopted the Intel chip. But point #1 was crucial.



BBRY is late with products, late with updates and late with it's own innovations to this game. Then when they come to the game.......they don't tell many folks that they are HERE and what they do NOW!. My question is quite simple. Why should anyone care about BBRY or HTC or the other brands that won't go all in to get their business? I have owned BB products for sometime now, and I have tried a slew of other products too. I really can't get the same amount of things done with other devices. But I know one thing for certain, hoping that other folks figure the same thing out is a bad strategy.

Brand repair strategy: The company need to go all in to reinvent the perception of this once market leader.

1) Fix the reputation: announce and release only the most current devices ON TIME, and Professionally. ( It's not about the device, it's about being competitive. Do what you say and say what you do.)
2) Be everywhere, all the time. Yes it is expensive, but that is the price today. The devices are top notch, but nobody knows and soon nobody will care unless you tell them all the time. If the influencers don't see you, or care......it won't matter
3) Sell: Always! It's not in the nature of Canadians to be attention seeking and assertive about our wares. But, the competition is. So when in ROME............
4) Be Consistent: The process takes time: Period: Apple, Audi, Samsung and countless other brands were in the dumps at one point. They developed a strategy, stuck to it and succeeded.

That is my educated opinion.

[jatb0y]

I think we (BB) needs to do some Apple style ads but against Apple. Aim for Apple and the sales will come....

How....

1) Short and sweet adverts showing features of BlackBerry. I.e. TimeShift, keyboard etc.

Mixed with....

2) Bring back PC vs MAC guy style ad's and do BlackBerry vs Iphone guy adverts.

Ideas for BlackBerry Guy: George Clooney, Owen Wilson, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig...

Iphone guy: Any no name actor who portrays a wanna be "creative guy" but who is just really s**t and just doesn't have the foggiest notion of how the real world works...he prob even stinks a bit coz the guy just doesn't really shower regularly

Caveat: don't make the BlackBerry Guy look like a wall street type at all coz of the issues there with GFC etc..



Posted via CB10

[SK122387]

I really think BlackBerry should capitalize on the people who "miss" their BlackBerry.

I see a lot of tweets referring to people missing their BlackBerry, or aspects/features of it, like the red light, BBM, "PING!!!"... BlackBerry10 has all these features, plus new, innovative ones, so BlackBerry would be wise to remind people of all the things they miss, plus all the areas that BlackBerry10 has caught up, or surpassed other operating systems in.


What bothers me about people who complain about BlackBerry is that so many people leave BlackBerry with the experience of having a cheap Curve or something, and think that's what new BlackBerrys are like too. I see tweets where people complain about their BlackBerry's battery, or the spinning clock, and BlackBerry should do something to let people know that these issues are gone. They really are (well, at least in the Z10 and Q10..I can't speak for the Q5, since I don't have that one).

I kinda liked the SuperBowl commercial angle of talking about what the Z10 doesn't have. I think they could go further with that, but with real things, i.e. the Z10 doesn't have a spinning clock anymore... it doesn't have a "retina display," it has a better-than-retina display, sorry.. the Z10 also doesn't have a battery that's stuck inside the phone... it doesn't have a messaging interface that looks identical to the texting interface, it has BBM... it doesn't allow you only one language for predictive type, sorry, it has up to three.

Of course, for this angle to work, you have to have a lot of the big apps onboard, so you leave no room for dA HaTerzz to run with a real list of things BlackBerry10 doesn't have, like Instagram, Netflix, whatever.

[djdragon]

1. Honesty. Actual "Pepsi Challenge" type of Ads with users doing tasks on each phone.

2. Successful non-celebrities in TV spots. And regular Joe schmo people. Consumers need to see that BlackBerry caters to the real world and why.

Posted via CB10

[21stNow]

BlackBerry needed to have better displays in carrier stores and third party stores such as Best Buy. They needed video screens showing people how to use BB10 and the swipe gestures. However the actual demo phones should not have been in demo mode, and people should have been able to use them as they would in real life.

The Samsung displays in Best Buy are nothing short of attention getting. The four-foot tall Samsung Galaxy S III that was in the stores last year was noticeable and made people want to know more about that phone. The commercials poking fun at people who wait in line for iPhones helped, too. The key is that customers have to see the product when they go into the store. If you are waiting on the customers to remember a commercial that they saw on TV, the sales rep has had the opportunity to talk the customer into something else before that level of recall occurs.

Interactive displays and models are the key. Today's consumers are more experiential than consumers were even ten years ago.

[Dirtymike14]

I think we (BB) needs to do some Apple style ads but against Apple. Aim for Apple and the sales will come....

How....

1) Short and sweet adverts showing features of BlackBerry. I.e. TimeShift, keyboard etc.

Mixed with....

2) Bring back PC vs MAC guy style ad's and do BlackBerry vs Iphone guy adverts.

Ideas for BlackBerry Guy: George Clooney, Owen Wilson, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig...

Iphone guy: Any no name actor who portrays a wanna be "creative guy" but who is just really s**t and just doesn't have the foggiest notion of how the real world works...he prob even stinks a bit coz the guy just doesn't really shower regularly

Caveat: don't make the BlackBerry Guy look like a wall street type at all coz of the issues there with GFC etc..



Posted via CB10

I love your idea for the blackberry vs iPhone guy!! Only thing I would change is make the iPhone guy an ignorant and annoying hipster taking pictures of his food

My z10 is a Leafs fan

[Gator99]

I think most would agree that the BB10 platform can muscle up with the best of them, but the biggest problem has to be marketing. Complain all you want about the lack of apps, but until the user base rises dramatically the wait for apps will continue. Maybe BlackBerry would have been better off changing the company name all together (something other than BlackBerry) . It seems to leave a sour taste in people's mouths.

Sent from the future on my Z10.

[Dirtymike14]

I think most would agree that the BB10 platform can muscle up with the best of them, but the biggest problem has to be marketing. Complain all you want about the lack of apps, but until the user base rises dramatically the wait for apps will continue. Maybe BlackBerry would have been better off changing the company name all together (something other than BlackBerry) . It seems to leave a sour taste in people's mouths.

Sent from the future on my Z10.

They should rename the company "RaspBerry" and sell the LE Z10s

My z10 is a Leafs fan

[Regan4000]

The marketing was an absolute disaster. I love my Z10, but everyone I show it to, knows nothing about it, absolutely nothing!

Frank Boulben failed miserably at his job. How the hell are they expected to sell phones when nobody knows anything about them?

Good God, I can't believe they ****ed this up so royally. It's plain as day that marketing was a massive failure, and subsequently, led to a dismal reception of the phone.

Wasn't there a study out in February or March that said nearly 80% of Americans don't know it's been released?

That should have been enough to realize Frank Boulben was useless.