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!Rob Noble

The Integrated Marketing Communications and Consumer Response for Blackberry Q10

Introduction

‣The Smartphone Market ‣An overview of the Blackberry brand and the Q10

smartphone ‣The BlackBerry Q10 integrated marketing plan ‣Target market and Consumer insights ‣Competition ‣Critical Evaluation ‣Recommendations !

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The Smartphone Market ‣ - In Q3 of 2013, smartphones accounted for 55% of all mobile

phone sales worldwide. ‣ - With the Android operating system dominating the market with

81.9% Market share with IOS and Blackberry behind with market shares of 12.1% and 1.8% ‣ - 41% of Smartphone owners according to a Mintel Oxygen report

claim to be dependent on their smartphone and 76% claim to have a level of dependence on their smartphone ‣ - Biggest drivers in the purchasing of smartphones are value for

money, reputation and reliability of brand and previous experience with brands

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BlackBerry - The Brand‣RIM know as Blackberry, has a brand built on providing a

smartphone for corporate purposes ‣The USP is through the “qwerty” Key board and e-mail

functions that are built into the hardware and software of the smartphones ‣These functions alongside providing a secure network

Blackberry still are the brand of choice within the enterprise market segment

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Perceptions of Technology Brands April 2013

‣ According to this Mintel report, perceptions of Blackberry are pushing towards outdated as a technology brand. ‣ It also suggests

Blackberry is seen as an unreliable brand, but this is not always the public opinion

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The Blackberry Q10

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The Product - Blackberry Q10‣ Re-engineered “qwerty” keyboard for effortless typing

‣ Instant action which allows the user to perform tasks using shortcuts from the home screen

‣ 3.1inch OLED touch screen

‣ Light and durable design

‣ Blackberry messenger and app world

!Source; Blackberry.com

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Current Marketing Strategy‣The aims of BlackBerrys Q10 Marketing Strategy are: ‣To create awareness about the Product in the business

market segment ‣Position the ‘Smartphone’ of choice for professional men

and women ‣Highlight the abilities of the new phone to appeal to a

potential market in a cognitive strategy ‣Allowing the product to fulfil customer needs

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Integrated Communications

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‣ Demonstrates the features of the phone – rational approach !

‣ Fulfills target audience’s need for a device capable to fulfill their working needs !

‣ Provides website address for consumer to respond to form a knowledge-based decision

“A need for a consumer is the desire for the product based on the benefits sought - can be functional or emotional.” (Brady 2004)

What methods are currently used to advertise the Q10?

‣ The product uses a Rational approach to advertise, this could be due to the fact that when it comes to smartphones, consumers would rather know about the product than be drawn to an advertisement through humour- for example. ‣ Advertisements on the corporate website show the product to be

slick, perfect for the audience they are aiming to for image purposes (youth and business professionals) ‣ Super Bowl Ad - Created by London Agency AMV BBDO, to show the

re-engineered and reinvented Blackberry to tens of millions of people on the biggest advertising stage. ‣ This will be run along side social media including promoted posts on

twitter and sponsored stories on facebook.

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Will a product appeal more if it’s exclusive?

‣When BlackBerry released the Q10 they made it exclusive to Selfridges- A high end store, which sells luxury brands. Following this feedback from the exclusive event showed that the Q10 had sold out in under an hour when it was released in Selfridges that day. ‣ Even so, some reviews show that consumers may have

been bulk buying for overseas sales, nonetheless, sales of the product remained high and popular. ‣Within the sale of the product in Selfridges, consumers also

appreciate the high level of knowledge from the customer service team, which is an essential selling point which it comes to Point of Purchase.

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How well had the marketing strategy worked?

‣ At this point in time, the products main competition was the other new device from BlackBerry (the Z10) which was a new device model which featured a full touchscreen (with no qwerty keyboard) ‣ Despite the Z10 having widespread advertisements, unlike the Q10

which was kept a bit more exclusive, sales did not increase as quickly as the Q10. ‣ Sales of the Q10 were said to be ‘Leagues beyond anything they’d

ever seen’ ‣ We could consider this to be down to the qualities of the product,

and how rational marketing could be the cause of high sales. Advertising states the Q10 has a ‘qwerty’ keyboard, and this is what consumers want.

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Target Market

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• December of 2013 Blackberry announced a change of target market

• They plan to exit the consumer market and focus primarily on ‘enterprise customers and prosumers’

• Michael Clewley (Director of handheld software product management) elaborated on the new target market, defining them as, ‘Their sole purpose is that this is primarily a communications device and a productivity machine…’

• This change is being viewed as Blackberry moving back to their heritage and roots

The Business Man or Woman

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How a Business Organisation Buys

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• A business market buys differently to a consumer market. This is because there are usually several people involved in a business to business buying decision, there will be different criteria needs and also there might be corporate policies and restrictions that may influence the decision

• What also effects an organisational purchases is the buy class, it can be one of the following three -straight re buy -modified re buy -new task

• Depending on what buy class the organisational purchase falls under it will change the amount of people involved in the process, and the length of the decision making process

Where They Buy ‣ Unlike a consumer buying process, in business to business buying,

where they buy is taken into more consideration, as it will usually be a contract handling large volumes for a considerable period of time

‣ Once specifications have been outlined, and vendors have been identified and evaluated- vendors of the product will offer a proposal

‣ In consideration of the purchase of smartphones proposals will be offered in regards to contract plans and payment plans

‣ Vendors of smartphones such as o2 may offer special deals/contracts to business’ / business use

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Purchase locations of mobile phones (in-store and online), 2012

Pie Chart Continued

• From this we can see where the majority of smartphone handsets are sold.

• a combined 47% is sold directly through the service provider

• 19% is sold though separate electronic specialists

• This leads us to believe that the contract plan will be the most important element of purchasing a smartphone

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How a Business Consumer Buys ‣ The consumer behaviour model can be applied to the

smartphone market due to the variables of service providers

‣ Consumers may have preconceptions of the smartphone this is their ‘evoked set’

‣ During the evaluation phase consumers will make a decision on which attributes are more suited for their needs (price, network, handheld device)

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CompetitionBlackBerry and Competition In 2009 BlackBerry is the market leader in the wireless telecommunications manufacturing industry in terms of sales, brand positioning and market share. ‣ Currently have serious financial troubles due to strong competition ‣ Competitors are some of the biggest companies in the world ‣ Sales of the smartphone in the US have plummeted from 50% in 2009 to 5.9% in

2013 (Will Connors, Wall Street Journal) !Who are BlackBerrys main competitors? Current market leaders Apple and Samsung Electronics ‣ People who create the Models: Nokia, Samsung and LG ‣ People who create Operating systems: Microsoft and Google ‣ Apple- BlackBerrys largest competitor, who create both the Model and

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Competition ContinuedCompetition within the Brand ‣ Newly released phones, such as the Z10, Curve, Z30 etc. ‣ All have different features and different uses, gives a good

opportunity for the brand to use different methods to advertise. !

Competition from other Brands ‣ iPhone 5 – Apple ‣ Samsung Galaxy S4 ‣ Nexus 5 ‣ HTC Evo 4G LTE 2 ‣ Nokia Lumia 9XX

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So, why is Apple more successful than BlackBerry? ‣ It is arguable that BlackBerry and Apple have a product to the same or

similar standard ‣ Linking methods of communication such as BBM to Apple ‣ Have a wider variety of products which the appeal to the consumer for other

uses (Tablets) Why is the Marketing Strategy more successful for the iPhone 5 than the BlackBerry Q10? ‣ Being able to use exclusive features to attract consumers (Siri, Fingerprint

security, FaceTime) ‣ Known for customer service skills ‘Apple Geniuses’ ‣ Advertising kept simple and straight to the point- The latest as shows the

iPhone 5s being former from melted gold, then someone simply touching the ‘home’ button to unlock the device with their finger print followed by the brand name http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYsSiaBZmRk ‣ More money to invest in marketing plans ‣ Always is new, innovative and exciting - Target to a different type of market

who are generally more willing to invest money into new and modern products and are easy to influence and persuade (e.g. youth)

BlackBerry vs Samsung - PrintSamsung Galaxy ‣ Gives information which is

straight to the point ‣ Slick and modern- appealing

to the consumer ‣ Brand recognisable ‣ Not overcrowded !

BlackBerry Q10 ‣ Does not give product

information ‣ Colourful, draws in attention ‣ Direct to the consumer ‘You

loved it’

The Consumer Relationship with Promotion for the Q10

‣The Q10 is a large part of the re-generation of the brand of Blackberry!‣Since loosing out such a large chunk of the smartphone market share to Apple and Samsung Blackberry have attempted to claw this back. !‣Blackberry have attempted to this through I high reach strategy with the Super Bowl advertisement that has a reach of tens of millions of people. !‣This is successful in creating awareness with the consumer that the brand is still a big player and that apple and samsung are not the only options. !‣ What is interesting in the smartphone market is the link between preference and purchase. !‣ This is because make and model are not the only considerations in the purchasing process of a smartphone.

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The Consumer Relationship with Promotion for the Q10

‣The contract that you are taking out and the provider can often be a deal breaker. !‣This is even more dominate in the corporate market due the scale of phones purchased if it was by a company for example. !‣What has been found is that Blackberry users have a large sense of loyalty due to the nature of the reliability of the product and the length of time using the product in the past. It is seen as a know quantity. !‣The marketing doesn’t reach out to the younger market, despite the integration of social media into the operating system, the younger market brought up on touch screen interfaces, who are not attracted to to keyboard as much older consumers, see performance, fun application and style as more drivers for purchase.

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Recommendations How could the BlackBerry Q10 improve their

The Q10 has yet to be released in the US but have a plan for how they will use their $39,316,286 marketing budget across the different mediums. With 87.1% being invested in traditional marketing this could show that they could consider investing more money into a new digital age of media. !‣ Creating more marketing schemes that will get people talking. Having a

marketing strategy that is out of the ordinary will create word of mouth, therefore promoting the products. ‣ Better interaction with Target Market- missing out on reaching the Business

enterprise by not advertising in Print Media such as the ‘Metro’ and ‘Evening Standard’ and also in large business city’s (London ect)

Recommendations Cont.‣After looking at competition- Simplicity and change is key,

the product needs to be up to date with the Smartphone market ‣ Following the latest technology trends, it is necessary to

have a social media presence- where BlackBerry can directly target their market and give information to their subscribers. ‘An effective social media platform will build traffic and gradually improve BlackBerrys SEO’ ‣ Sales Promotions for business specialists ‣ Increasing emphasis on business features

References • BlackBerry BBM Blogger, Ricketts, 2011 (Date Accessed 13/01/13) http://princess050390.blogspot.co.uk/p/marketing-plan.html

• Clark, L. (2013) ‘Blackberry Buyout fails, company secures $1 billion investment’ [WWW] Available from; http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/blackberry-failed-buyout Date Accessed; 14/01/14

• Clow, K, E. Baack, D. (2012) ‘Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications’ 5th Edition, England, Pearson Education, Publishing as Prentice Hall

• Connors, W. (2013) ‘For Blackberry, U.S. Battle is Uphill’ The Wall Street Journal

• Fiddler, B (2013) ‘Integrated Marketing Communications Plan: Blackberry Q10’ [WWW] Available from http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~cgonza/Images/IMCPlanBlackBerry.pdf Date Accessed 12/01/14

• Official BlackBerry Q10 Website (Date Accessed 12/01/13) http://uk.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-q10.html?LID=uk:bb:devices:blackberryq10:getdetails&LPOS=uk:bb:devices

• Paul, M, D. (2012) ‘Smartphone Purchasing Habits’ Mintel Report, Mintel Group Ltd.

• Paul, D. (2013) ‘The importance of brand in technology purchase’ Mintel Report, Mintel Group Ltd.

• Ricketts, O. (2011) ‘Marketing Plan’ [WWW] Available from; http://princess050390.blogspot.co.uk/p/marketing-plan.html Date Accessed; 08/01/14

• Samuel, G. (2013) ‘Mobile Phones’ Mintel Report, Mintel Group Ltd.

• Selfridges Article, the Guardian, Charles Arthur, April 2013 (Date Accessed 10/01/13) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/29/blackberry-q10-sellout-uk

• YouTube. 2014. Apple iPhone 5 - TV Ad - Music Every Day. [online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzcN5nP5l4E [Accessed: 20 Jan 2014].

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Other Sources Used - http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/technology-and-telecoms/blackberry-ends-tie-up-with-alicia-keys/4008998.article!

- http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blackberry-defines-prosumer-target-market-communications-productivity-160301793--finance.html!

- http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/04/blackberry-failed-buyout

- http://bgr.com/2013/10/30/blackberry-market-share-q3-2013/!

- http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2013/11/04/blackberry-shares-plummet-as-buyout-collapses/!

- http://bgr.com/2013/10/30/blackberry-market-share-q3-2013/!

- http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/new-blackberry-ceo-confirms-focus-on-business-customers/4008772.article

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