BlackBerry phone, which was positioned as an enterprise phone for mobile executives, has
repositioned itself as per their changed target customer, i.e., youth in India. Even
BlackBerry mobile color which was black earlier has been changed to different colors like
candy, white, brown etc., to attract youth. Research in Motion (RIM), creator of this
phone, in this way did an excellent job in reading the mindset of the youth in India.
BlackBerry market share increased from 9% in 2009 to 13% in 2010. This is the
consequence of repositioning the brand as well as targeting. BlackBerry is now considered
as a status symbol for college-going youth because they want to imitate the executive
culture.
For targeting youth, BlackBerry India changed its communication strategy. In a
campaign with Vodafone, they had gone for a slogan, ‘We are BlackBerry Boy’. This
advertisement started with the image of a few suit-clad men claiming to be cool, because
they use BlackBerry. But soon a bundle of youngsters join the gang and start singing about
chatting and surfing (Vodafone BlackBerry TVC). After sometime, BlackBerry again
changed its campaign. In the new version of TV commercial, the suit-clad executives are
in a depressed mood because now BlackBerry is no longer exclusive for them. The reason
behind it is the intrusion made by the young crowd in their exclusive Blackberry world,
and they got frustrated and started saying, ‘They are BlackBerry Boys’. It means now
Blackberry is made for youth (Chopra, 2012).
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