My team decided to analyze BlackBerry through the marketing assignments we were tasked with doing this semester in COMM 296, and I could not be happier with our choice! The current situation with BlackBerry is very interesting as the company is trying to turn itself around in order to once again become a profitable organization. While we were working our assignments, BlackBerry was actually releasing its device that was tasked with reviving the company, the Z10. Actively following how this story progressed in the news made the assignments a lot more interesting because given that they were releasing a new product, my team was able to see clearly how BlackBerry was marketing to its consumers and positioning itself.

My team decided to specifically analyze the Indonesian youth segment for our final project. We decided to choose this target market because Indonesia has been coined the “BlackBerry nation” as the company has been extremely successful there, and we felt that we could relate to the youth segment given that we were young adults ourselves. In addition, we did not feel that BlackBerry’s window of opportunity in North America was large enough for the company to focus on targeting in order to have a sustainable advantage going forward. I personally feel this way because the North American smartphone market has become saturated as Androids and iPhones have completely taken over.

The team experience I was able to take part in when completing these assignments was definitely enjoyable. My team members, Beverley See, Nick Parkhaev, Carol Huang, and Kyle Yoshida, were also coming up with interesting and unique ideas when discussing how to approach a particular assignment. It definitely provided strong evidence of a team’s ability to produce well thought out ideas that are of high quality, which is always great to be a part of!

As I was browsing the marketing blog AdWeek, I came across an interesting post on tax software brands and their battle for market share. Not only did this post remind me that I still need to file my taxes this year, it also brought up a couple of points I found to be really interesting.

First of all, the post talked about a recent commercial put out by TurboTax (embedded below) that received a lot of backlash from traditional tax service provider H&R Block as they took it as a direct hit. In my opinion, I would not argue with H&R Block in this situation. If you watch the commercial, it does seem like it is directly targeting H&R Block, but I do not necessarily think the commercial is bad; it’s just an attack at a competitor. TurboTax has its unique service that it offers its customers, and H&R Block gives people assurance that their taxes are being taken care of through human interaction. They are two different businesses, and I do not think that aggressive marketing techniques like this example are necessarily bad.

In addition, I thought the statistics the post mentioned were also interesting. It stated that the market shares of physical stores are down 19%, and that more than 37% of Americans have turned to software. To me, this definitely makes sense. With the rapid progression of technology and with the consumers moving more towards conducting their daily activities through the computer rather than in person, even the IRS is offering free software for individuals that have an income less than $57,000. To me, it appears that TurboTax is in a great position going forward, and through marketing techniques like this one where they clearly differentiate themselves from their competitors, I think that they can continue to seize market share.