Marketing BBX

Posted by yenyob on November 2, 2011 11:54 pm 5

I've only been a BlackBerry user for about two years(I had the Tour, the Bold 9930). Prior to that I had what I thought was the greatest phone ever, the LG Voyager. After 10 replacements, I was wrong. I was thrilled when I decided on the Tour and found out what a great device it was. I never owned a smartphone and it did everything I always wanted a phone to do. Now, realize that at that time, Verizon had a wall of BlackBerries no iPhone and pretty sure no Android phones, so this was it. Shortly thereafter, the blitz was on and I kinda felt left out because I was under contract and all of these amazing new phones were coming out. 

Fast forward to April 2011. My contract was up and since the rumored Blackberries weren't near release, I bought an HTC Thunderbolt. In another post, I talked about my issues with that phone(texts sending to random people, rebooting, etc). I loved that phone but then the 9930 came out and the TBolt went to someone second hand. 

 

I wrote the above to basically say, I'm not a Blackberry nor a smartphone expert, just a fan of the brand and what it offers ME. But I would like to offer what I hope RIM will do with the upcoming phones. 

 

First off, the BlackBerry advertising is horrible and anywhere I have been, a commercial on tv is near non existent. Seriously, I can tell you just about any Android commercial(yes I know Verizon advertises many of the Droid commercials) even though Apple doesn't need to, their products are advertised EVERYWHERE and OFTEN. Samsung and HTC as well. RIM needs advertise just like they do. Yeah, they may not have the budget of Apple, but they could do alot better than they are now that's for sure.

 

The new BBX phones are sure to be full touchscreen. This needs to be multimedia gaming phone. Even though(hopefully) BBM will be ready, it has to take a backseat. I love it, it has great purpose, but most people have unlimited texting right? They have apps like KIK that are cross platform. iMessage is nice, but it's just another feature on the iPhone. No one is buying that phone just because of it. They like it, use it, but there is so much more as a whole. This is what the "colt" has to be. Front facing camera, voice to text without a 3rd party app, and they better make the UI amazing. Speaking of apps, I'm glad to see them really making a push to get developers on board. I would imagine there will be android app integration as well like the PlayBook is promising.

 

There is also the subject of people like me, that love the form factor with Blackberry's amazing keyboard. The 9930 is a dream phone for me with the touchscreen/keyboard it has(even though that screen is too small at times). They need to continue to make these phones with the BBX software of course. Market this as the business phone as they normally would, but also as the communication tool that it is. I've typed on glass and it's ok, but there is nothing like a physical keyboard to pump out some serious messaging. Facebook, Twitter, forums, blogs, texting BBM...who wouldn't want this? 

 

RIM missed the boat on it's current phones and didn't advertise as such. At least give it a shot and try again. What do they have to lose? 

 

Here's to the success of BBX. 

 

And one more thing, let's get these forums going with some Blackberry love. As of this writing we are still in the single digits of posts!