Is it back to basics at BlackBerry?

BlackBerry’s relationship with consumers has turned sour. But what can be done to ensure it doesn’t lose touch with its original business customers? Alex Aspinall reports

Whichever way you spin it, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion’s (RIM) decision to turn its back on the consumer market and focus on its original corporate customer base looks like an admission of failure. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: recognising what’s going wrong and working to resolve it is important in business. But it’s pretty clear the decision is not one BlackBerry bosses were planning to make only a year or so ago. It is reactionary.

The company’s servers crashing several times last autumn – and the resultant blackouts experienced by customers – didn’t help, and the company’s lack of innovation isn’t ideal, neither is the relentless march of Apple and Android. But several of BlackBerry’s problems can be linked to marketing issues and there are clearly lessons to be learnt.

BlackBerry is still a major player but its troubles will not magically disappear with its return to a B2B focus. The problems experienced by RIM highlight both the speed with which technology and innovation is moving at the moment, and also the important role marketing can play in a business’ success or failure.

With this in mind we spoke to several marketing agencies, asking them what BlackBerry needs to do to engineer a successful homecoming.

Business app store holds the key – James Wood, planner at Earnest

 

Before Thorsten Heins took up his role as the CEO of RIM, he discussed in length his ambitions to improve the BlackBerry app store in order to retain and entice new customers into the world of BlackBerry.

Since taking up the role, his strategy has drifted to concentrating on the business market, bringing the BlackBerry back to its roots as the best smartphone to use in business – bar none. But unfortunately he missed the boat. The rise of consumerisation and the growing trend of ‘bring-your-own-device’ means that employees no longer have one device for home and one for the workplace; they want the same, good looking, easy-to-use technology wherever they are or whatever they are doing. So where does this leave RIM?

I believe Thorsten was right all along; apps have been the fuel that have propelled the rise of the smartphone and concentrating on developing a fantastic app store is key. But why compete with Apple who dominate the market with consumer apps? RIM should use its business roots and expertise of the market to build a world-class business app store that sells app specifically designed for the everyday employee – helping make their life easier and making them more productive

Our advice for RIM: keep up with changing trends, don’t try to compete in a saturated market, spot the gaps and stick to what you know.

Radical will rule – Scott Wilkinson, planning director at Bordello

BlackBerry: a fruitful brand that has fallen far, far from the tree of grace. It’s tempting to believe that it’s beyond marketing help. Because, as a product, it’s deader than a dead parrot. Entrenching back into the business market won’t help the patient with no pulse.

So is there a plan? Perhaps. RIM must know it needs to reinvent the business smartphone, solve a problem we didn’t know existed. But given we now hold powerful computers in our hands that can seemingly do anything, it’s not immediately obvious how.

Yet fortune favours the brave. BlackBerry must invent something radical. Something heretical; something that stirs an ache in the pants of every business user.

Such a reinvention is perfectly possible. Paradigms are there to be over-turned. And with the speed at which tech markets work, it’s BlackBerry’s only shot for survival.

Unless, of course, it’s got another entirely different product up its sleeves that isn’t a smartphone. It did it once. It could do it again. Who among us predicted Apple’s ascendency before the launch of the iMac?

But without a radical move, all us marketing types can do is delay – and then dress up – BlackBerry’s funeral.

Re-engage the business community – Drew Nicholson, joint managing director of DNX

Announcing that it is reverting to its original and hugely successful audience – the business community – will not be sufficient to reverse the fortunes of BlackBerry. All audiences move on and few are ultimately loyal; ensuring their retention or return from recent migration to other brands is not going to be easy in this vastly competitive market.

Innovation is the kryptonite of the mobile industry; without it there is no energy, no driving force and thus no consumer desire. BlackBerry is running low on kryptonite and needs to re-energise itself if its to stand up to the other smartphone superpowers.

Firstly, BlackBerry needs to address the issues surrounding the versatility of its phones; famous for its marvelous email service, yet infamous for its appalling internet interface. BlackBerry has to produce a new breed of smartphone that leapfrogs its competitors in all areas of design, innovation, usability and reliability.

Secondly, it needs to re-engage with the business community solely and unequivocally. Repositioning a brand, which in essence is what BlackBerry needs to do, is never easy. It will require huge creative talent, a multi-platformed approach and an exaggerated business oriented message to drag the brand back into the territory it once so easily dominated.

But whether the business community will forgive BlackBerry’s recent short comings will only been known retrospectively.

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