[Zidentia]

[U][/U]We have to face the pending crisis with intelligence and marketing savvy. BlackBerry is surely ailing right now and will be for several months. A lot of stock manipulation is being played out in the media and everyone is piling on and kicking instead of rallying and having empathy. As a corporate management refugee and long term business owner I see several flaws in the prior management and present situation.

BlackBerry, as in Thorsten, needs to focus on one key strategy right now. If he truly has the mandate to create long term value for RIM then he needs to market BlackBerry better. RIM has good products, not all of them are great but the product road is solid and improving. Here is the problem: No one knows about it!

When I came to BlackBerry I came via word of mouth which is a result of legacy brand awareness. This works for some products and was more effective ten years ago but in the reality of the present attention deficit rattled consumers you have already lost. Even today with a large market share Apple advertises nationally and in major mainstream media. Not pop ups on Panorama or Yahoo. I never saw an ad for Blackberry before then but I can recall many Microsoft, HTC and Samsung commercials. I can also recall weight loss pills, exercise equipment and buttons to squeeze when I can not get up. Do any of these work? I do not know but the sheer repetitions of these companies has me thinking about the possibilities. Maybe I do need a male enhancement pill. Maybe having a twenty four pack is not cause to brag.

BlackBerry should devote one fourth of their available funds to ads. Go Ron Popiel on our . Make me want a ninja blender that has 3G. Make ME WANT! Show me the magical properties of bridge when I sync with my BlackBerry phone. Show me the ease and security of late night pillow talk on BBM. Show me the why my company will not be hacked by my competitors or that crazy country that wants my server for botnets. Show me how BlackBerry has the first and best eco-system in place. Show me how I get things done with my Playbook because I am a person that wants TO DO not play. Show me how the PlayBook not only competes but beats the Ipad in features and benefits. Make a humorous ad about easy it is make a document or create a presentation compared to company X.

Just make sure you do not hide these on You Tube or social networking sites because the target audience at this point is not the consumer who makes an informed decision but the consumer who makes a decision because they have been informed. The time is now not fourth quarter 2012. Start teasing now. It already is too late.

[bilianajones]

Yep, a good product will market itself and if supported by good marketing, it will market itself better!