Since BlackBerry is such a hot topic this month, I was glad to see that someone had made a post about the new Z10 marketing campaign. On his blog (link here), Stephen He expressed his disappointment in BlackBerry’s expensive 30-second commercial that was aired during the Super Bowl. However, I actually think it was an effective way of marketing on BlackBerry’s behalf.
As Stephen mentioned, BlackBerry has fallen to 4th place in terms of share in the mobile phone market. Apple’s iPhone 4/4s/5 and Samsung’s Galaxy SII/III quickly replaced the BlackBerry Curve and Bold, and many people have inevitably forgotten about BlackBerry during their two-year delay of the Z10 release. Although RIM’s company name change and the launch of the Z10 did create a lot of hype, the Super Bowl commercial furthered the buzz by drawing in watchers’ curiosity.
In my Marketing class last week about promotion, Tamar introduced to us the AIDA marketing model – which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. I think the Super Bowl commercial was successful in the “Attention” step because the commercial had an unexpected “plot” and it also had appealing effects and music. Most viewers probably expect smartphone commercials to introduce the awesome new features of the product immediately – but BlackBerry decided to play on people’s curiosity by showing things that the Z10 can’t do. In truth, 30 seconds is really not enough time to fully explain the unique features of the BlackBerry 10 Operating System – including the BlackBerry Balance, Hub, Flow, and Swift Key typing. So instead, at the end of the short commercial a one-line caption appears telling viewers to “See what it can do at blackberry.com/z10” which is like a call-for-action statement. Although it is not guaranteed that viewers will browse the BlackBerry website to check out the new phone, BlackBerry also released the “Keep Moving” commercial in February. This ad is 1 minute long as opposed to 30 seconds, and shows most of the new features of the Z10 (video below). I think those who watched the Super Bowl commercial beforehand would be more inclined to pay attention to other forms of BlackBerry advertisement such as this “Keep Moving” commercial since their interest and curiosity has already been provoked.
In summary, although the Super Bowl commercial was a bit superficial and uninformative, I think it was a valuable marketing strategy nevertheless and it certainly drew more attention to the Z10!
BlackBerry Keep Moving Commercial <– Click here to watch the 1-minute long commercial (I’m not sure why the video won’t directly post, but here’s the link!)
