As the release of iPhone6 and iPhone6 Plus to the market, plenty of people are enjoying their new purchases, but there have been a series of iPhone 6 problems reported by customers, especially the bending concern. Although Apple claims that “with normal use, a bend in iPhone is extremely rare”, its shares still fell down nearly 4 percent. Yet Apple’s long-time competitor, Blackberry, introduces its new Passport device to the public on Sept.25. Blackberry CEO John Chen said “I would challenge you guys to bend our Passport”, which successfully attracts the attention of people who are concerning about Apple’s bending problem. Meanwhile, the prospect of Passport is very optimistic as the orders surpassing 200,000 on the first day through its ShopBlackBerry store and Amazon. This case is a representative example of comparative advertising as what I learned in COMM101 class. Apparently, Apple’s products were the most popular ones over the past several years, especially in smartphone market, and Blackberry was gradually losing it competitive power. However, when Apple is trapped into iPhone’s bending problem, Blackberry uses a good marketing strategy to show how its product is superior to Apple’s, which makes more customers start to pay attention to Passport and its other features. Generally, comparative advertising can be seen as an effective competitive tool for lesser-known brands to break into markets or for the tired brands to regain market shares. We have seen a successful case of the competition between Pepsi and Coca-Cola, though Blackberry may not be able to copy the same success, they still gain a lot from it.

Work Cited

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/apple-plays-defense-on-iphone-6-bending-software-concerns/articleshow/43489371.cms http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/blackberry-ceo-john-chen-bites-into-apple/articleshow/43493432.cms?intenttarget=no http://mobilesyrup.com/2014/10/03/passport-back-in-store-at-shopblackberry-begins-shipping-october-6th/

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BlackBerry Passport sold out again at ShopBlackBerry [Update]