Blackberry Marketing - Pearl Users
When Blackberry released its 8100 Pearl it took its brand to new levels. No longer was it strictly the communication tool of choice for the business community. The Blackberry has successfully (albeit limited) penetrated the commercial market.
From personal experience I have been using the Pearl for a few months now for work and leisure, though my work takes me as a web contractor to various parts of the world it has been the communication device that lets me not only keep in contact daily with my colleagues and clients but also to family and friends. It’s not the perfect device for travelling but it’s as good as others on the market. The commercial side to this is my 14 year old daughter really wanted one when she saw the slick design and the instant messaging capabilities. She sacrificed other gifts to receive one for her birthday. She is now hooked and so are several of her friends and no doubt spend the day BB’ing (as they call it when they message) each other back and forth. There is downside to this and listening to my daughter and her friends they all agree there is not enough add-ons that attract them to make it a full-addicting-device.
While Blackberry have clearly designed the 8100 to attract a more modern, hip and a younger crowd, which from a commercial stand-point makes sense, they will need to think about keeping this crowd not only for the next generation of the Pearl style phones, also the current phones. This means creating a better user-experience and developing add-ons that are user-friendly and that attract the younger crowd. It won’t be long now until the iPhone comes on the market and these very same Pearl users start longing for one because of its features. I’m not saying that the Peal aspires to be the iPhone and should have that many bells and whistles, but it should start thinking about keeping and expanding its user base.
Mobile 2.0
Most of us are familiar with the Web 2.0 term and it’s social interaction tools that allow for Communities to share information easily. The same applies to the Mobile web, if Blackberry want to expand its Pearl brand to a non-business audience then it should get on top of its marketing strategy and start attracting these users through more socially interactive tools.
That's a good point, I'm 20 and I bought the Pearl 1) Because I had a BB 3 years ago and loved how organized I could be 2) Because I accidently wound up on a site (getjar.com I think) that had a bunch of apps and add-ons that I never knew were possible for cell phones, and that's what I'm all about...the ability to add things to your phone to either make it more accessible and useful or more entertaining. I wasn't too impressed with the Pearl, UNTIL I purchased a 2G MicroSD Card for $30 at RadioShack, went to school the next day, took the card out, put it in the SD Card adapter, put it in my friends computer, transferred a full length 6MB movie (Where the Buffalo Roam) from his desktop to my card, the transfer took less than 30 seconds, I removed my card, put the MicroSD back in my BB and BAM!!! I had the movie!!! It wasn't perfect but man it was amasing, and it blew his mind!!! I think with the upcoming feature of mixing BB OS with Windows Mobile (Rumor, I forget the source) the BB universe is going to take one giant leap into the future!!! No doubt can BB be the most dominate Handheld/Cell Phone/MP3/PDA/etc. with more and more people joining the BB Community (slowly but surely) some of those people will help take BB to the next generation and beyond... Trust me guys, iPods (okay it's almost as common as breathing), but still I bought the ZUNE (why? it's different, cheaper, there not going to release a newer cooler one in 2 weeks), iPhone/BlackJack/or another PDA (the blackjack and PDA's might have some better features then my BB Pearl, may even have better price, but my "red" BB Pearl 8100 not only has everything I need, it's cool looking ***That's all my generation/this generation cares about***, now the iPhone may be a couple steps up from BB's but think about it, if yuo have an iPod what will an iPhone do for you besides make a call *and since iPod's aren't returnable people aren't going to ditch there iPods for the phones...nor could they sell them on eBay for half the price of the iPhone*) With the iPhone being around $500, it definately won't catch on quickly, I assume the rich laguna beach kids will make there parents buy them one, but the fact is there's so many choices no phone is honeslty that much worse than the iPhone, especially when you compare prices!!! So ya, the BB still has some things to work out, but it's definately on the right track, and hopefully they (BB) and we (developers) don't lose site that if we try and keep up with the iPhone and other competitors we'll be in for a long ride, but if we try and think outside of the box and be original and not copy or imitate those other phones, we'll eventually have a list of features that set us apart from the other phones, instead of us being similar phones that cost less!!! GOOD LUCK TOO ALL, keep crackin!!!