RIM's Blackberry Campaign Commentary

Blackberry’s been running a great campaign.
It started with a banner ad.
The banner asked you to share with Blackberry “why you loved it”.
From there, you could read other stories of why people loved their blackberry. There are lots and lots of stories. And you can learn more about your Blackberry in the process. Thus driving more usage of data that the telco cartel loves.
And from there, they ran ads that showcased ordinary people and exceptional people who all “Loved their Blackberry”. It connected to those of us that aspire and those that do not.

With all of this, RIM and their agency have done a few things really right. Let’s point that out.
1. They have connected the word and feeling of “love” to the Blackberry. I bet when you think about Blackberry now, you’ll have a parallel thought or idea of “love”. It’s perfect placement.
2. They’ve created a sense of community. Community is one of the top brand attributes you want. It is a sense of unity and a connection with others. A phone should have a connection aspect to the brand but many times it does not. Think Nokia, and do you think “community”? Likely not. People seek to belong. It’s not part of Maslow’s Heirarchy for no reason. Religious communities, unions, fraternities, clubs, and sewing circles are all expressions of a desire for belonging. The promise and delivery of community underlies the offerings of several successful organizations including NASCAR with its centralizing focus on car racing and leagues of loyal fans that follow the race circuit, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and their Harley Owners Group (HOG), and Jimmy Buffet with his dedicated Parrotheads (which I proudly belong to!). These companies attract and support their communities who then embody specific values tied to their products and services.
3. It’s fully integrated. The internet banner ads go with the website which goes with the print ads which goes to the point of purchase materials. It’s all linked. This means they’ve decide what central theme to focus on and then have rallied all the crazy internal parts of any big company to execute against that one deliciously big idea. Notice they aren’t focusing on the keyboard, or the widget or the whatever. Which, by the way, is smart since most phones really aren’t that different anymore. All roads lead to one message, and that message can tie out all product lines and create a halo effect for some time.
Brilliant. 100% uplift based on web reports.