Despite its new CEO promising a renewed focus on marketing, Research In Motion hasn’t been known for effective campaigns of late. The company launched a sizable advertising blitz earlier this year that focused on its new BlackBerry Bold smartphones, but the commercials had no apparent impact on smartphone sales in key markets including the United States. Late last month, RIM and its Australian marketing agency Tongue began a campaign that takes a different approach to raising brand awareness, though it’s one we have seen numerous times in the past: bash Apple and its customers.
Samsung and Apple are tangled in a number of legal battles around the world, and Samsung carried the companies’ squabbles over to a recent advertising campaign that built up to the launch of its supersized smartphone, the Galaxy Note. As such, many thought Samsung was behind a recent guerrilla marketing stunt that saw a bus-load of men and women stage a protest outside an Apple Store in Australia.
After Samsung denied being involved with the stunt amid media backlash, RIM stayed quiet on the matter until a bit of digging revealed that it was indeed responsible for the mock protest.
RIM’s “Wake Up” stunt has now culminated in the launch of a website that continues to target Apple, the iPhone and iPhone owners. The wake up, be bold site states that BlackBerry owners are the type of people who “take action and make things happen.” Taking a shot at Apple’s well-known slogan, RIM goes on to note that BlackBerry users don’t just “think different,” they “do different.”
“It’s a simple choice,” the website continues. “You’re either here to leave your mark and eat opportunity for breakfast or you’re satisfied to just float through life like a cork in the stream.”
RIM gave the world its first glimpse at the next-generation BlackBerry 10 operating system last week during the BlackBerry World conference, though the first smartphone powered by the new platform is not expected to launch until October. In the meantime, the company will continue to push its BlackBerry 7 smartphones.
