Posts Tagged: blackberry

android / apple / blackberry / iPad / iPhone / iPod / observatory / tablets / windows phone 7 — 9 Comments
14
Jul 11

Cult epidemic breaks out in tech industry

As you know, Apple fans lost touch decades ago.

They’re a cult — hypnotized sheep, blindly following their savior Steve Jobs. They line up to fork over their cash for overpriced devices, unfazed by the fact that Apple only wants to control them. By the tens of millions, they surrender their free will, buying technology no one could really like. One day they’ll wake up and see how foolish they’ve been.

But we live in a competitive world. New and even more deluded cults are springing up all around us. Even the smart people are being sucked into them — behaving in ways that defy explanation.

Just two days ago, 700 members of the RIM cult held a meeting. These people have already exhibited irrational behavior by actually purchasing RIM stock. Inexplicably, they applauded the company’s leadership, even though RIM’s earnings are rapidly plummeting as their once-invincible empire continues to crumble. Then people who should know better started voicing strange opinions — like the investment executive who said that he didn’t hear anything that gave him concerns about the company’s direction. His firm was sitting on 100,000 of those steadily declining shares.

Meanwhile, the PC cult was meeting over at Microsoft, at the Worldwide Partners Conference. Here, Steve Ballmer held up the divine numbers, showing 350 million Windows licenses in the past year vs. 20 million for the other guys. “350, the last time I checked, is a lot more than 20,” said Ballmer to the delight of his followers. Yet nobody took note of the fact that PC sales continue to slide, and Microsoft remains far, far behind in phones and tablets.

Then, right on cue, the High Lord of Windows Phone 7 rose to proclaim that Microsoft will never use a mobile OS to power a tablet, because what people really want in a tablet is PC power. It’s Windows all the way. The crowd applauded, seemingly unconcerned that over 25 million people have fallen in love with their puny, un-PC iPads, or that netbook shipments have basically collapsed due to iPad’s runaway sales. Love of PC is core to this crowd, and they’ll cling to it till their last dying breath.

Being the easily led Apple type of cult follower, I’m tempted to join up with one of these other cults. Their kind of irrational thinking appeals to me. I’ll contemplate this more when I return from my daily Apple Store visit.

blackberry / observatory / strategy / tablets / technology — 3 Comments
18
Apr 11

Plight of the PlayBook speechwriter

Some jobs in this world are too daunting for us regular folk to ponder: astronaut … fireman … flagpole sitter … PlayBook speechwriter…

I mean it takes some fancy writing to get around the challenges of a tablet flung into head-on competition with iPad when it’s not yet fully cooked. I can only imagine the call RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie made to his speechwriter before his recent Bloomberg interview.

BALSILLIE: Listen, Tex, I need your help. We gave some PlayBooks out to reporters, and the reviews are coming back pretty bad.

TEX: Geez, Jim. Why’d you go and do something like that? I thought that thing wasn’t going to be ready for another six months.

BALSILLIE: Water under the bridge. I need some good quotes fast. I’m on Bloomberg in an hour.

TEX: Okay, but I get my hazardous duty rate for this.

BALSILLIE: Yeah, whatever. Listen, you can bet your booties that the Bloomberg lady is going to go right for the jugular. She’s going to ask why PlayBook doesn’t have a built-in email client.

TEX: You’re kidding me. It doesn’t? How can you ship a tablet without built-in email?

BALSILLIE: It’s not so bad. You just have to connect it to a BlackBerry and do your email through that.

TEX (covering the receiver to hide his chuckling): If I have my BlackBerry with me, why wouldn’t I just use that to do my email?

BALSILLIE: You’re missing the point. PlayBook is a tablet. People love tablets. They’re buying millions of iPads.

TEX: Well, yeah, but iPad has built-in email.

BALSILLIE: Okay, I’ve got an idea. What if I say, “You can pair it with your BlackBerry for free.” People love free things, right? It’s cool that PlayBook doesn’t have built-in email because you can get it for free by plugging it into your BlackBerry.

TEX: But it’s already free on iPad.

BALSILLIE: Exactly. We’ll both have it for free!

TEX: (eye roll)

BALSILLIE: Good, so we’ll do that. Now about this app thing. Little problem there.

TEX: Like?

BALSILLIE: Like we have 3,000 apps and iPad has over 60,000.

TEX: How about “they’re really, really great apps”?

BALSILLIE: I was thinking of another approach. How about “We’ve got 100,000 apps”?

TEX: You just said you only had 3,000 apps.

BALSILLIE: We do. But we’re going to get more.

TEX: You’re confusing me.

BALSILLIE: We’re figuring out a way to run Android apps on this puppy. Probably in the summer.

TEX: Still, you’d be talking about something you don’t have now. And who knows how well this “Android emulation” thing will really work.

BALSILLIE: Your point?

TEX: Look, I think your best way out of this mess is to just do what Steve Jobs does. Use a lot of superlatives. Keep repeating them.

BALSILLIE: I don’t get it.

TEX: Think style, not substance. I’ve jotted down half a dozen quips here already. Memorize these: “It’s super-super fast.” “It’s ultraportable.” “It’s an amazing platform.” “We’re in an exceptional position.” “I feel incredibly bullish.”

BALSILLIE: Wow. You’re good.

TEX: You can do this, Jim. Remember, they have email, we have email. They have apps, we have apps. They have 3G, we have—

BALSILLIE: Uh, we don’t have 3G yet. Coming soon.

TEX: What? How can you possibly sell a tablet to business people without 3G?

BALSILLIE: Uh … can we just find a superlative for that?

advertising / app store / blackberry / creative / iPhone / observatory / strategy — 12 Comments
21
Jan 11

Adwatch: Intel soars, BlackBerry splats

These two ads have been around for a bit, but I’m sharing them anyway. Try and stop me. One proves that there’s always a creative way to say what’s been said before. The other proves that lame strategies lead to lame ads.

Starting on a positive note, here’s Intel’s effort:

In one of my first-ever posts 18 months ago, I raved about the new creative work from Intel via agency Venables & Partners. In following months, I gagged at their embarrassing Sad Robot and Penguins spots. These guys are giving me whiplash now, because this ad for their i5 processor is really, really good. (Correction 1/25 2:59pm: Venables did not create the Penguins spot, just the Robot spot.)

Not only is it fresh and mesmerizing, it’s a great job done under difficult circumstances.

Intel makes processors. Every new processor is faster than the one before. So, chip after chip, the creative guys are asked to come up with a new way to say the same thing. It’s one of the tougher challenges in this business. Then there’s the not-insignificant fact that working with Intel can make the veins in your head burst. So when someone makes a great ad, and Intel doesn’t peck it to death, this is big news.

Now brace yourself. Here comes the clunker:

Suppose for a minute that you’re BlackBerry. Your market share is in a well-documented free-fall. You’re watching as Apple and Google fight it out for new customers — a huge chunk of which happen to be your current customers. You get that apps are the big deal in mobile technology, but your own App World is a pathetic also-ran to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Apps Marketplace. (You’re only behind by a couple hundred thousand apps.)

But you’re feisty. There’s still some fight left in you. You bring in your top strategists and creative hotshots, and allocate a nice chunk of marketing money to the cause. And what do you get? An ad that basically says: With BlackBerry, you don’t just get apps — you get “super apps.”

It’s stunning, actually. You would think that grown adults with even a fleeting familiarity with the smartphone market would know better. Does anyone believe there’s anything about the BlackBerry OS that would allow it to run apps that are more “super” than Apple’s and Google’s apps? What the hero of this spot does seems to be easily accomplished via iPhone or Android. This is simply BlackBerry wishing things would be different — but the cold reality is there for all to see.

BlackBerry once had such a commanding share of the smartphone market, it’s hard to imagine them fading to nothing. But ads like this make you think that’s a distinct possibility.

advertising / creative / observatory — 1 Comment
19
Aug 10

BlackBerry’s little dream world

In this world, dreams and aspirations come in every size and shape.

Look hard enough and you’ll find a brain surgeon who wants to be a toreador. Or a truck driver who wants to be a nun. Maybe even a BlackBerry that dreams of being the life of the party.

Well, that’s weird. Here’s that BlackBerry now. AT&T just started running this ad for the new Torch. They sum it up like this: “Business, meet fun. Fun, business.”

It’s a curious approach, because business and fun have not only been meeting for three years — they’ve been shamelessly involved in a wild, passionate affair for all to see. It’s only RIM, maker of BlackBerry, who’s been watching from afar.

But let’s mind our manners, and first lavish this commercial with the creative praise it deserves. It’s tremendously cool. The concept is fantastic. The production is first-rate, the soundtrack is quirkily fitting, and I smile every time I watch it.

Unfortunately, this Torch ad is in serious danger of proving an old marketing adage. That is, nothing kills a bad product faster than a great commercial. Drawing a large crowd can be fatal if the crowd is largely disappointed.

No matter how you twist your reasoning, it’s hard to escape the basic fact: Torch ain’t fun. In fact, it’s shockingly un-fun when compared to iPhone and Android. On the day it was released, it was panned for its underpowered processor and undersized, low-res display (Gizmodo: “like going back to standard definition after a year on HD”). If apps are any indicator of fun, iPhone offers 225,000, Android 100,000 and BlackBerry only 8,000 — most of which aren’t even compatible with the BlackBerry 6 OS at the core of Torch.

Seemingly determined to prove the fun, those mirth-makers at RIM have done just the opposite. They’ve shipped Torch with a version of the 20-year-old arcade game, Sonic the Hedgehog. (Engadget: “the experience is abysmal. Slowdowns, garbled audio, horrible controls. It’s actually kind of sad.”)

Given the grim reality, Torch’s sluggish initial sales are understandable. During opening weekend, there were no lines and no sellouts. Total sales were only a small fraction of what iPhone and Android have seen.

Comparisons to Torch’s competitors are so one-sided, AT&T can’t possibly be talking to the general public with this ad. They have to be talking to long-term BlackBerry customers who have the itch to upgrade, but are being distracted by those flirtatious newcomers. If this is the case, they really mean to describe Torch as “relatively fun.” Compared to the humorless old BlackBerrys many of these people are carrying, the Torch is a laugh riot.

In the end, Torch is a stopgap measure at best. It can only hope to stem the tide of BlackBerry defectors, but clearly it has no hope of stealing customers from iPhone and Android. That’s bad news, considering iPhone and Android are rolling in cash by stealing customers from RIM.

Clearly RIM needs to be less concerned about the party clothes, and more concerned about what’s beneath.

creative / strategy — 19 Comments
20
Oct 09

BlackBerry: All you need is nerve

If a commercial is to fail, normally it’s because of weak creative or unsound strategy. So I have to give BlackBerry a little credit for coming up with a third way. By their choice of a musical theme, they’ve successfully broken the gall barrier.

I refer, of course, to the use of the Beatles classic All You Need Is Love. Before I go on, let us first observe a moment of silence to lament that the Beatles catalog ever fell into enemy hands, and that such commercialization of the holy writings is even possible. Thankfully, the evil-doers can only get their mitts on the publishing rights, and not the actual Beatles tracks.

But back to the commercial. By summoning the spirit of the Beatles, BlackBerry muscles its way into a most personal and sacred place. Unless your name is McCartney, it takes a lot of nerve to go there — with a bit of arrogance and miscalculation.

My emotional hurt aside, there’s another reason why BlackBerry’s approach fails. The theme of the new campaign is: “Do what you love, love what you do.” I’m sorry, but to claim love on a Beatles-esque scale, it has to be authentic. There is precious little about the company RIM or the product BlackBerry that allows them to claim this territory. Try to be something you’re not and you’re just asking for trouble.

The spot above is the only one currently available on YouTube (forgive the unclean head and tail). I’ve seen another spot on TV that features a young couple having issues and, my personal favorite, cool people dancing. This type of work is born of the belief that if you show cool young people, you will attract cool young people — even though these are the people most likely to see right through you.

As most creatives know, you don’t become cool by telling people you’re cool. Intel got ridicule, not hipness, for phony-cool dancers in its Multiplicity campaign. Dell made us squirm with young/cool buyers dancing their way out of the dell.com warehouse. Even Apple failed with its launch spot for the very first iPod, featuring a guy dancing through his apartment (dubbed “iClod” by some). Only when the Silhouettes campaign came along did iPod get the image right. Those spots captured an emotion without pandering to the target audience. They proved that you don’t have to hold up a mirror to your customers to connect with them.

Clearly BlackBerry is jealous of the love being directed at iPhone. “Hell, let’s just tell people they should love us too” isn’t really a strategy. Without any real reason to stick with BlackBerry, they’re just showing us the people they think we want to be, and asking us sing along — with a song that probably angers more people than it pleases. Good luck with that one.