Redifining the Blackberry

Project 3 - Redefining The Blackberry

History:

The Blackberry started out as a very simple pager service back in 1999 by a company called RIM – Research In Motion, a prominent leader in wireless communication. It commenced with its very first model, the 850, and has evolved all the way up until today with the upcoming 9000. Though cell phones weren’t really that big in 1999, the Blackberry 850 provided a few prominent features (aside from paging) that gave way to the idea of a PDA, some of which included: an organizer, a calendar and even wireless internet. Another very prominent feature that has always been a plus in the Blackberry is the fact that it has a QWERTY keyboard.

The evolution of the Blackberry took its form very quickly during the start of the 21^st century. Many upgrades like twice the amount memory or a much larger screen were rapidly applied to the device due to its increase in popularity in the business world. Soon enough, various capabilities we commonly see today have been added to the device as early as the year 2003. Several models were created for the specific use of Bluetooth features, CDMA compatibility, two-way radio and eventually made Cingular the #1 wireless communication provider in all of the US (right about the time when the company bought AT&T). A few 7000-series Blackberry phones attempted to reduce the bulkiness of the older models through compensation of buttons by reducing the amount of letters to two per button. This gave way to the track ball which replaced the old side scroll wheel and allowed the new model to be applicable to both work and life demographics due to the model’s small size and ease of use. As the Blackberry grew larger in its subscribers (5 million by 2006), newer models were released more often, even if the only difference from the previous model was a single feature such as the addition of Wi-Fi or a camera. Finally, with the Blackberry 8800, the innovations have halted in the last year due to the same features being released repeatedly, only with the attempt of combining them altogether. The 9000 series Blackberry has been long awaited with the promises of certain cool, new features like a slider device, touch-screen capabilities and an angular keyboard. Thought it’s not likely for every single one of those awesome features to go into one phone, it does give us the idea that RIM has some interesting things planned for the future.

Audience:

Our target audience will be two separate identities: one is the corporate/business demographic and the other is the young/life demographic.

Competition:

A tad obvious, but worth the mention as always – the iPhone. A few others include the Motorolla “Q”, the Nokia E90i and the Palm Treo 800. All competitors feature some really impressive looking phones, with similar capabilities, if not better ones.

Strategy:

We intend to tackle the two separate identities in a way that best fits them. The typical business person would usually expect a fairly straightforward pitch, such as simply showcasing the product and listing a few of its strongest features. A younger audience has the tendency to orient their tastes around gaudy and humorous ideas. We intend to combine a clever tagline with somewhat of a mildly sexual theme which we believe will pertain to the younger audience quite well.

Visual Style:

The visual style will depend on the particular demographic involved in the ad/commercial. The business demographic typically involves a person, a statement from the person and the product shown alongside that person. For the young, life-like audience, it takes a bit more creativity such as the use of cool backgrounds, a clever tag-line or a powerful statement.