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. http://www.mventur.com

1. 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,

2. 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

3. 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.

4. About MVentur
MVentur is the world’s first youth mobile consultancy.
We have 2 roles:
1) Advisor to our clients
We 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 industry
We promote progressive marketing ideas that help mobile companies go
beyond advertising. Read more about our youth mobile opinion pieces.
www.MVentur.com