MVentur memo: Q1 2013

Re-engaging BlackBerry’s young female defectors is key to staging a brand comeback

How does Blackberry engineer turnaround?

“We have a lot of social channels that we track on Facebook and Twitter…we know what people that actually left BlackBerry to another platform think about that platform or what they think about the BlackBerry platform. There’s a lot of comments that say, “Hey, I wanna come back.” This is a target segment that our marketing approach will specifically go after.”- Blackberry CEO Thorsten Heins

BlackBerry’s position today is similar to Apple of the 90s in that it has a small Beachhead of Fans, good products and a legacy. But what BlackBerry’s turnaround needs is the company to take a stand.

Taking a stand means making a choice about where they belong and who they belong to. Making a choice also means making clear,

conscious decisions about what not to do and not being afraid to lose some of their customers in order to rebuild. Winning back the target segments CEO Heins identifies - particularly the influential young, female aspirants means adopting a marketing strategy that takes the brand beyond the limitations of ad agencies and mass market branding.

Hiring celebrities like Alicia Keys is 20th century marketing, it no longer washes with today’s youth. Alicia Keys may be cool but if Blackberry is to really realize a woman’s worth, the company needs to build its brand on these influential young, female Fans.

Turnaround means letting go of old habits. It also may mean alienating some of their existing customers but BlackBerry’s survival relies on it becoming something to somebody not everything to everybody.

BlackBerry’s biggest enemy in the turnaround will be agencies and creatives that promise the silver bullet solution by “reinventing” the brand or casting it in a light of “cool”. This is no longer about being “liked” by the many but about being “loved” by the few. When Jobs re-engineered Apple he cut out numerous product lines and its reliance on advertising, taking it back to school with a focus on youth, creativity and education.

What BlackBerry needs to do is, like Apple, re-engage their Fan base by focusing on the 10% that influence the 90%. Blackberry already uses NPS data, what they need to do now is turn NPS from a score into a system and start using the numbers to build a visual heatmap of its influencers.

Re-engaging young Fans may mean building deeper relationships with existing users over finding new ones. 40% of all used and gifted phones owned by teens are Blackberry (often gifted by parents). This means there is a significant population of teens with older Blackberries and they shouldn’t be overlooked by marketing that focuses entirely on “the next big thing”.

BlackBerry needs to forego surveys, focus groups and advertising to find out the why question. Why do Fans love Blackberry and how can Blackberry help them generate Earned Media?

Why are youth key to BlackBerry’s turnaround story?

The youth of today will influence the executives of tomorrow. Once handset choice shifts from corporate IT departments to individuals, the

decision is shaped by Earned Media. 65% of youth bought handsets based on peer recommendation.

Female teens are traditionally a core Beachhead for the BlackBerry brand. This group is twice as likely to own a handset compared to adults. Not only do they overweight in ownership but young aspirant females are also the most influential. Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a recent press interview that female Facebookers have 8% more friends and are responsible for 62% of all the sharing on Facebook.

More Data: See mobileYouth report #7

The popularity of Blackberry extends from the youth to the adult space. Recent industry data found that 56% of women own a smartphone, as opposed to 51% of men, and BlackBerry is clearly their preferred platform (21% of women against 15% of men).

Ethnic youth are also a key Beachhead for Blackberry. African Americans in the US and young Caribbeans and African descendents in the UK have traditionally been the first to turn Blackberry into a relevant brand to the wider youth market, preferring BlackBerry over iPhone 2 to 4 times more.

More Data: See mobileYouth report #8

While youth mobile is a $400bn market annually, the value to BlackBerry is in how this market influences the future executive market. The key mobile applications of today have been driven by the youth market (SMS, Facebook and BBM). Now these applications are widely used and monetized corporates but they would not have reached prominence without the original youth Change Agents.

About MVentur

MVentur is the world’s first youth mobile consultancy.We have 2 roles:

1) Advisor to our clientsWe oversee marketing plans, act on advisory panels and consult our clients. Find out more about our consultancy work.

2) Commercial think tank for the mobile industryWe promote progressive marketing ideas that help mobile companies go beyond advertising. Read more about our youth mobile opinion pieces.

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