Since the vigorous launch of the iphone, RIM sales had been plummaging downwards. In my opinion, this was in part due mostly to RIM’s lack of marketing. Think of all the exposure Apple products are recieving: the futuristic Apple stores that’s been placed in nearly every mall around town, the “If you don’t have an iPhone…Well you don’t have an iPhone” commercials, or the “uploaded from my Apple device” captions on Facebook, RIM’s marketing campaign is non-existent in comparison.
However, this is about to change. Hopefully. RIM’s new CEO, Thorsten Heins, announced just over the weekend, that he is looking for a chief marketing officer and that RIM will be improving their marketing message, particularly in the US.
Thorsten Heins, 54, new CEO. (RIM)
“We need to be more marketing-driven,” Heins said in a call with analysts. “We need to be more consumer oriented because this is where a lot of our growth is coming from.”
In an article on the Toronto Star, Carmi Levy( journalist and technology analyst) mentions the following:
“I don’t want to sound nasty, but RIM hasn’t been able to market its way out of a paper bag for quite some time. It’s clear that engineers have been responsible for your messaging. I love engineers, but they shouldn’t be allowed near the marketing materials. Send them back to the labs and hire a marketing/advertising/PR team that understands how to make people feel an emotional connection to your products once again.”
While Levy’s criticism is quite harsh, it is painfully true. RIM had been without a marketing department since March and their line of new products: Curve, Bold, and Torch were launched unnoticed. Mr. Heins’s strategy of redeveloping RIM’s marketing department may give RIM a new chance to survival but they will have a long way to catch up before gaining back their 2008 competitiveness.