The morning FM radio is an interesting source of numerous brand building and rebuilding approaches. One advertisement that caught my attention in the recent past was this – a conversation between a guy and a girl:
The guy is going overseas and the girl rues over how it might not be possible to access him at all times like the good old days when he was still in India. To which, the guy says, “I will be connected to you all the time honey. I have a Blackberry after all.”
Quite surprising this. Thus far, the Blackberry (BB) has been perceived to be a business phone. Some of the words that come to mind when one thinks of a BB are serious, official and boring. Definitely, fun is not one of them.
Perhaps, the advertisement is not so surprising when we consider this. The potential smart phone market in India is huge. What with the proliferation of social networking, the number of teenagers accessing the mobile web has been growing at an alarming rate. While LG, Samsung and Nokia have been active in the low end smart phones market to attract school and college going kids, the high end smart phones have not exactly tried targeting this segment as yet. Also, if one goes by the news item here, BB is facing serious competition from the Google and Apple smart phones. That Google and Apple themselves are fighting a fierce battle against each other in the smart phone category is a different story for a different day.
No wonder BB is attempting to expand and redefine its market. The most inexpensive BB costs around INR 13,000, and is devoid only of such features as the 3G. But, thinking of it a little more, there are still some gaps here:
- BB still looks a boring phone when compared to an Apple iPhone which has a strong brand name behind it, has the ‘fun’ and ‘social’ tags attached to it and has clearly etched the image of an aspirational phone in the minds of even people who are not tech savvy. An interesting article here analyses the positives of the Apple brand and the various campaigns undertaken to promote iPhone 4.
- It is still not geeky enough when compared to an Android device which has the blessings of open source software that can be tweaked to customize the phone to the user’s needs.
- And, it is not inexpensive enough to compete with the LGs and the Samsungs catering to the younger crowd.
However, what the BB does have is that strong enterprise brand attached to it, and also complete functionality when it comes to the business user. It is also quite hassle free to use from a social perspective. In other words, it strikes a fine balance between the official and the personal. On the other hand, colleagues of mine who have used competing brands such as the Android are of the opinion that these are phones are not that business efficient when compared to the BB.
If BB is looking at expanding its market, it requires an end to end image makeover. Just a few advertisements featuring a girlfriend-boyfriend duo might not do the trick.
Remember, it is perhaps the phone which the target segment’s parents use. So, targeting the younger, more vibrant population requires more than just content – a fresher form in terms of color and shape, and a brand name to go with it (perhaps a sub-brand, perhaps a stand-alone brand). These might actually do the trick in shifting the brand association from ‘serious’ to ‘fun’. Who knows, BB might actually end up identifying an altogether new mid-market lying in between the Samsungs and the LGs on one end and the iPhones on the other.
vinayvasan
Aug 11, 2010 @ 15:57:13
A nice viewpoint. A few of us had a similar debate recently and one of the senior most person from the US said that, I carry 2 phones, 1 a BB and other an iphone. When I want to send business mails etc, I use the BB and for everything else, i use the iphone. A telling point on how the BB has got a perception that is fairly hard to shake and they are not helping themselves by releasing not-so-great products recently too
SMS
Aug 11, 2010 @ 16:20:56
Was thinking of something like “Orange Berry” or “Red Berry” – to convey that the new brand is lively, fun and youngful..
Seems like RedBerry is already available in China from RIM’s competitor (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/article819974.ece)
Vijay
Aug 11, 2010 @ 20:00:44
I think corporate brands matter more than product brands.. Technology is largely a commodity and frankly anyone can do anything. Question is who is your customer and how can u build adjacencies without diluting or altering your corporate brand. BB had this unique positioning of being the gold standard of official communication, but now by venturing out of it, they might end up diluting their positioning in their core area. BB has become a phone brand now, or it runs the risk of becoming one, but earlier a BB was a BB, not a phone. In that sense, Apple has been able to identify a fairly wider customer group and has developed a lot of adjacencies as well.. BB shd perhaps look to sell more to the official dude; will require some product innovation for that. (Btw, is there any connection with the apparel brand blackberrys?)
The only catch in making it the “uncool phone” is that our definition of cool and non-cool are perhaps too narrow in applicability.. in that, we are looking at the cream of upper middle class teens who already have parents in proper corporate jobs etc etc. But for a lot of teens, a BB is something more than just another phone, something more expensive and hence perhaps cooler. Only ppl who are very used to and tired of the high flying corporate life wud equate “business” with “non-cool”
Bihag Bhatt
Aug 12, 2010 @ 02:25:47
I don’t think the problem is with our definition of cool and uncool. Blackberry’s bulky frame, small qwerty keys and their biggest selling point tell now (Push mail) have all focussed on function and not form. Cool whereas focuses on style, great look and such other things. Blackberry deliberately did focus on business users probably because of the afford-ability factor. Only now they have realized that there is a huge market for smart phones outside business users.
Also, for teens (or for anybody) more expensive does not translate in to cooler. I don’t know about how the berry works with Social networks but that is definitely not what their image is about. Whereas everyone from Samsung, LG, even Micromax to iPhone talk about being connected with friends and social networking on the go.
I kind of agree with Kavita’s view here (who knew that could happen
) – the berry should come with a different brand to target the low-end smart phone market and try to garner more money from business users through creating more apps which are charged separately.
By default, cool is against formal or compliant. Business requires both. Hence, business != uncool. QED.
(Could I get some money from that P=NP pool please??)
Bihag Bhatt
Aug 12, 2010 @ 02:26:35
Oops.. I meant Business = Uncool!
Bihag Bhatt
Aug 12, 2010 @ 02:28:20
Btw, another interesting article on blackberry – http://shekharkapur.com/blog/2010/07/a-blackberry-addict-discovers-grassroots-enterprise-in-india/
Unrelated to this discussion though.
Bihag Bhatt
Aug 12, 2010 @ 02:28:45
I should stop before I break GB’s record!!
Peace!
Kavity
Aug 12, 2010 @ 14:35:40
@vinayvasan: Good that you highlighted it. Here too, a couple of senior people have two smart phones with them – the BB for official purposes and the iPhone for personal purposes.
@SMS: Thanks for this. Very interesting how China Unicom is trying to pirate and capitalize on BB’s brand value.
@Vijay: Perhaps introduction of more lower-end business phones would expand the business market for BB. But, I don’t know how that pricing might affect their overall brand image. Need to analyze more on that front. And, regarding the cool quotient, I do agree with Bihag that it might have more to do with the look and feel than the price point itself. At the end of the day, these kids do know that they cannot afford certain kinds of phones and hence a ‘sour-grapes’ attitude might set in. It might just be an aspirational brand that’s all.
Blackberry’s, the apparel brand, is a desi brand established by the Mohan Clothing Co. in the early ‘90s. Looks like no connect there.
@Bihag: Finally, we do seem to be seeing eye-to-eye on something! Yeah, that is an interesting article by Shekhar Kapur, in fact the next time I am in Mumbai, was thinking I should track down this place. Once a BB falls in water, it does not function any more, these guys would be much in demand in such situations. And, yes, you have already reached GB levels by replying so much to your own comments
Vijay
Aug 12, 2010 @ 21:58:25
@ Bihag – Hahaha, you can have the money bro!!
@Kavi – I should have known better. When have you ever agreed with my idea of ‘cool’ness of a phone?
srinath
Aug 27, 2010 @ 13:58:12
OK – commenting quite some time after this article was published but here goes….
BB makes money by selling services – NOT from the “product/device”
The “service” they sell is – “Secure” (guess why they’re having run-ins with governments
) and seamless “Push Email”, “Instant Communicator”, “Calendar Management” and “Voice calls” anywhere in the world – by riding on Networks present in those countries as a Virtual Mobile Service Provider.
Not surprisingly – chiefly businesses/corporates can really “afford” these services and have much of a use for it… ie – to have work follow people anytime anywhere
. BB’s “customers” are thus mainly B2B purchasing reps – not individuals. This “service” is what’s their strong competitive advantage which virtually no other competitor has been able to breach.
The product – ie “blackberry phone” is quite incidental – they might as well give it away almost for free & probably do to their large multinational clients – i’d be surprised if they actually make money on the device itself – on which the general consensus tends to be that the interface design is quite hideous
People buying phones in their individual capacity often “can’t afford” or “don’t need” the “service” provided by blackberry (ie secure calendar management+email+voice globally) & thus will probably find virtually any other company’s smartphone proposition meeting his needs better – BB actually has a real competitive disadvantage here
With that biz background – in context of the “ad” in question – If i were holding RIM shares, I wouldn’t want them “spending money” pushing its current “irrelevant product” to the segment that “doesn’t need/can’t afford the service” – not unless they develop a “Service” competitively priced/relevant for individuals – which BTW mobile networks already offer by themselves.
I probably wouldn’t even want them to bother cracking the “smartphone” market – because smartphones WILL become commoditized in a few years with margins crashing AND BB has a competitive disadvantage here.
I’d probably be much more concerned on how to capitalize on “cloud computing” for corporates – for which current blackberry technology is ill-equipped and which Google has started developing strong platforms for
srinath
Aug 27, 2010 @ 13:59:22
OK – commenting quite some time after this article was published but here goes….
BB makes money by selling services – NOT from the “product/device”
The “service” they sell is – “Secure” (guess why they’re having run-ins with governments
) and seamless “Push Email”, “Instant Communicator”, “Calendar Management” and “Voice calls” anywhere in the world – by riding on Networks present in those countries as a Virtual Mobile Service Provider.
Not surprisingly – chiefly businesses/corporates can really “afford” these services and have much of a use for it… ie – to have work follow people anytime anywhere
. BB’s “customers” are thus mainly B2B purchasing reps – not individuals. This “service” is what’s their strong competitive advantage which virtually no other competitor has been able to breach.
The product – ie “blackberry phone” is quite incidental – they might as well give it away almost for free & probably do to their large multinational clients – i’d be surprised if they actually make money on the device itself – on which the general consensus tends to be that the interface design is quite hideous
People buying phones in their individual capacity often “can’t afford” or “don’t need” the “service” provided by blackberry (ie secure calendar management+email+voice globally) & thus will probably find virtually any other company’s smartphone proposition meeting his needs better – BB actually has a real competitive disadvantage here
With that biz background – in context of the “ad” in question – If i were holding RIM shares, I wouldn’t want them “spending money” pushing its current “irrelevant product” to the segment that “doesn’t need/can’t afford the service” – not unless they develop a “Service” competitively priced/relevant for individuals – which BTW mobile networks already offer by themselves.
I probably wouldn’t even want them to bother cracking the “smartphone” market – because smartphones WILL become commoditized in a few years with margins crashing AND BB has a competitive disadvantage here.
I’d probably be much more concerned on how to capitalize on “cloud computing” for corporates – for which current blackberry technology is ill-equipped and which Google has started developing strong platforms for