From being number one in the smartphone industry to being an endangered phone company, could this be Blackberry’s chance to win back customers? Adding to what Jia Yi Liu discussed in her blog about Blackberry Ltd ‘s new release of BBM as an app, I think that this is a great opportunity for Blackberry to improve.
Hours after the release my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram’s news feed were filled with BBM contacts. Blackberry Ltd was on the way to rock bottom but this new marketing strategy could potentially save the company. I agree with Jia questioning if customers will purchase the Blackberry device. By raising brand awareness they may be winning the interest of some consumers, but I don’t believe this is enough for people to make the change back to Blackberry from their Iphone or Android. These 160 character messages use up a phones data instead of as a SMS, a point of parity of many similar services like WhatsApp, and WeChat.
BBM is not something new and innovative; although Blackberry is trying, I believe that if they want to be successful they have to try something that is completely out of the box, and groundbreaking.