Past Approaches:
- Blackberry’s first SuperBowl ad for Z10 in 2013: This ad was a manifestation of Blackberry’s under-developed positioning strategy and communication objectives. In this 30 second ad which was aired on Feb 3rd on Television, a 20 to 30 year old model in casual clothing is walking down the street and is playing music on his Z10 phone when he suddenly is on fire and grows elephant feet and then turns a truck into rubber ducks. The slogan in this ad is “30 seconds is quicker to show you what it can’t do”.
With no proper demonstration of the phone’s functionality or the target market, this 4 million dollar ad flopped with only 4% recall rate. An average recall rate of the actual brands of SuperBowl commercials is 14% while 57% of viewers can recognize the ad. (Media Life, 2013)
In the previous report it was determined that Blackberry was suffering from low brand awareness. Advertising through mass media and especially in a marketing event such as SuperBowl with such huge coverage was the best chance for Blackberry to increase its’ brand awareness but Blackberry probably missed the ball. Overall, the idea of mass media advertising was clever but it turned out to be ineffective as it was not well-executed.
- Movement towards a more product-oriented advertisement: Blackberry now spends fewer resources on celebrity endorsement and mass media brand advertisement and is more product-focused in its’ advertisements. This change in Blackberry’s advertising strategy is a result of the changes that they have made to their positioning strategy.
When Blackberry used to target the entire market of smartphone users, their advertisements were less informative and more visual and brand-oriented. It was not until they narrowed down their target market to professionals when their ads were more about the functionality of their products than the fashionability and the brand. It was a natural move for Blackberry as their brand equity has dramatically decreased.
- Decrease in their ad spending as a result of their fragile financial position: Competitors’ has been over-shadowing Blackberry in mass media. In 2012, BlackBerry spent $41.3 million on advertisement, while its’ main competitors, Apple and Samsung each spent more than $333.4 million and $400 million, respectively. (Cheng, 2013)
While brands such as Apple and Samsung aggressively advertise their products on television, Blackberry does not have the financial resources to match their coverage. Instead, Blackberry’s presence has been more through print ads in magazines, social media and reliance on the support of the carriers. This will be further explored.
Current Media Objectives:
- Choosing the right media vehicle: Blackberry is targeting the niche market of powerful professionals who can afford and are willing to purchase a high-end smartphone like “Passport”. This market is very small, is busy and is proved to be more critical of the content of the ads they are exposed to (MillwardBrown, 2009) and because of their busy lifestyles, they do not have much time on their hands.
We are aware that this target market includes hard-working professionals, who travel a lot and value productivity above anything. They probably do not watch a lot of daytime television. To them, time is money. Therefore, when advertising a specific product (rather than the brand), mass media such as television might not be the best media vehicle to target these customers, not to mention it is extremely costly. Blackberry has to select a media vehicle that this market is most exposed to first, before trying to communicate with them. This is when the consumer media consumption analysis and lifestyle analysis significantly influence the choice of media vehicles to be used.
According to Mark Wilson, senior vice president of Marketing, their target market for Passport only constitutes 6 to 7 percent of the smartphone users.(Cheng, 2014) Marty Beard, BlackBerry Chief Operating Officer, hoping to attract half of this market, stated that if “they target this market, they will be very profitable.” (Cheng, 2014) Blackberry executives showed concern about the lack of carrier support that they receive because of Blackberry’s struggles with low brand awareness, which brings us to the next point. (Cheng, 2014)
- Brand Awareness: In the previous reports, it was revealed how Blackberry suffered from low brand awareness. Mass media, because of its huge coverage, can potentially be a good choice for Blackberry to show the world that they are back again. However, when using mass media, Blackberry must be fully aware that mass media is better to be used for brand awareness and that they probably will not reach the niche market of wealthy professionals to sell their high-end smartphones to, unless, it is smartly executed.
- Brand Attitude: As discussed in previous sections, Blackberry deviated from its’ original overarching marketing strategy which was to target professionals only and moved towards targeting mainstream smartphone users in the past. This damaged the attitude customers had towards the brand. One of the current media objectives of the company is to regain its’ positive brand attitude. This can be achieved by focusing on productivity and functionality of devices in the advertisements and creating positive emotions towards the brand.
- Brand Trial: Consumers can purchase “Passport” from Blackberry website and Amazon. The extent of carrier support that it will receive is not clear yet. In the previous report, it was determined that Blackberry’s over-arching marketing strategy is to attract smartphone users from other brands such as Apple and Samsung. In order to persuade consumers to try the brand, Blackberry has engaged in a very unique sales promotion called the “trade up” programme.
Blackberry will pay $400 in cash and $150 in gift card to anyone in the US or Canada who trades in their iPhone 4S, 5, 5C, 5S or 6 for the new BlackBerry Passport handset. The programme will end in February 13, 2015. (Hansen, 2014) This approach is very unique in nature; I can only imagine how much an average iPhone user spends on smartphone in their lifetime that this promotion is deemed profitable for Blackberry to undertake.
Going this far to steal customers from Apple in the daylight is very ambitious. Unlike Carl Simard of Medici, who called this “a desperate act” (NDTV gadgets, 2014), I believe this approach is not so inappropriate for Blackberry considering its fragile competitive position in the market. Had it been Samsung, I would have had a different outlook. This promotional offer has been so controversial and talked about on the internet that Blackberry did not need to do much advertising to communicate it with iPhone users. I am very eager to see the outcome.
The Media Mix:
Blackberry uses different media vehicles for different purposes. It has presence in most media classes, however it has particularly high presence in print media, newspapers and magazines and social media, and less presence in television and radio. In this section, two different media vehicles used by Blackberry are briefly discussed and recommendations are made on Blackberry’s future approaches to media planning.
Recently, Blackberry has been having great presence in print media and specifically Canadian newspapers. (See the ad below)
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| Current Blackberry ad in Canadian newspapers |
The ad reads:
“At BlackBerry, we're proud of our Canadian heritage. It's what drives us to continuously push security and productivity boundaries, allowing those with unstoppable energy to work smarter, collaborate better and accomplish more. The soon-to-be-released BlackBerry Passport is further proof of our commitment to serious mobility for serious business.”
The ad is made with the purpose of increasing brand awareness and brand recall, and preparing the Canadian market for the launch of Blackberry Passport. It evokes national pride and creates a positive brand attitude. The ad is very product-focused, a great portion of the information provided in the ad is dedicated to describing the product attributes. The incomplete picture of Passport in the ad along with the general information provided suggests to me that this is not a serious attempt to persuade the professional market to purchase the device and it is rather targeted at the public with the purpose of brand awareness.
It was previously mentioned that high profile business people tend to travel a lot for business. Blackberry seems to have recognized that. It engaged in outdoor advertising by setting up large video walls in an airport in New Delhi. (Ali, 2014)
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| Passport video walls in New Delhi airport |
Recommendations:
It is recommended that Blackberry carries out a thorough and detailed media consumption analysis of its target market and monitors their response, their recall rate and reach over time to evaluate the effectiveness of its media plan.
Blackberry’s main competitors, Apple and Samsung, as mentioned have a large presence in mass media, particularly television. Considering Blackberry’s niche target market and financial position, it is highly recommended that Blackberry avoids going head to head with its rivals in mass media advertisement and rather invests in other media vehicles that its’ competitors have less share in. For instance, Apple has 66% share of voice in network television and 71% of its’ media mix is made up of network television. (Smith, et al, 2013)
For Blackberry to try to send its message across to its “niche market” through media vehicles that are dominated by powerful market leaders is too risky if not impossible. First of all, Blackberry will not have the adequate financial resources to have nearly as much presence in television in the near future. Second of all, even if it could afford to, these media vehicles are way too cluttered for Blackberry to reach its target market. The only way for it to do that is to compensate for the clutter by increasing frequency and wait a while to see the results. Lastly, this media vehicle might not be the best option for Blackberry’s target market. This target market is very selective on what they watch. It might include the news, popular sport matches, etc. (Smith, et al, 2013) I believe secondary media such as newspapers, magazines, posters and direct mails are better ways to reach them.
Blackberry’s target market is expected to read newspapers and magazines (like The Economist, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, New York Times, etc) on a daily basis. They are expected to drive through high-traffic areas (such as Times Square) and are therefore exposed to outdoor advertising (such as billboards). Overall, it is recommended that Blackberry to reduce its advertising on television and rather spends its budget on print media and outdoor advertisement. These media vehicles are proved to be more effective in targeting professionals. (Smith, et al, 2013 and MillwardBrown. 2009)
References:
Ali, Shahzoor. 2014. Huge Blackberry Passport Advertisement At New Delhi Airport. India’s best Blackberry community. Retrieved from: http://www.bbin.in/2014/10/huge-blackberry-passport-advertisement-new-delhi-airport/
Cheng, Roger. 2014. Blackberry hopes love it or hate it Passport earns it a second chance. Cnet. Retrieved from: http://www.cnet.com/news/blackberry-hopes-love-it-or-hate-it-passport-earns-it-a-second-chance/
Cheng. 2013. How BlackBerry is fixing its once 'broken' brand. Cnet. Retrieved from: http://www.cnet.com/news/how-blackberry-is-fixing-its-once-broken-brand/
Hansen, Matt. 2014. Blackberry is paying iPhone users to switch to the Passport. TechRadar Phones. Retrieved from: http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/blackberry-is-paying-iphone-users-to-switch-to-the-passport-1274490
Media Life Magazine. 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.medialifemagazine.com/study-few-recall-super-bowl-ad-brands/
MillwardBrown. 2009. How best to market to business professionals? Retrived from: http://www.millwardbrown.com/docs/default-source/insight-documents/knowledge-points/MillwardBrown_KnowledgePoint_MarketToBusinessProfessionals.pdf
NDTV gadgets. 2014. BlackBerry Courts iPhone Users With Hefty Cash Offers. Retrieved from: http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/blackberry-courts-iphone-users-with-hefty-cash-offers-626006
Smith. Lee. Jorge. Blackberry 10 Media Plan 2013-2014. Retrieved from:http://www.isamuel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Media-Plan-Final-Spreads.pdf
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