Could advertising have saved Blackberry wonders Joyce Yip on the Marketing Interactive site.
Yip cites Samsung’s blanket advertising as one of the reason’s for the Korean brand’s success while Blackberry could only afford a token presence for the new Z10 phone.
While there’s no doubt Samsung and Apple’s marketing muscle has helped them dominate the smartphone market, advertising alone doesn’t explain the dominant brands’ success.
Blackberry was doomed from the moment a business friendly smartphone was released, no-one expected it at the time but it turned out to be the iPhone.
Compared to the iPhone, the Blackberry was woefully underfeatured and once corporate users discovered email wasn’t the only use for a smartphone, the Canadian company’s fate was sealed.
While the Z10 and Q10 phones were well featured devices, they are way too late for a market where Apple and Samsung have most of the sales and take all the profit.
It’s tempting to think advertising and marketing may have saved Blackberry, but the company was overtaken by a fundamental market change which left it stranded.
For a while in the late 2000s Blackberry looked untouchable in the corporate market and no-one would have expected Samsung and Apple to disrupt their position. That’s the real lesson Blackberry teaches us.