Table of Contents
1. Introduction.. 2
2. Brand Issues. 2
3. Brand Inventory.. 4
3.1 Introduction.. 4
3.2 Target Market Segment. 4
3.3 Values & Attributes. 4
3.4 SWOT analysis. 5
3.5 Brand analysis: Keller’s CBBE model 7
4. Brand exploratory.. 9
5. Strategic Recommendations. 11
5.1 Positioning, Market Focus & Pricing.. 12
5.2 Product development and differentiation strategy.. 12
5.2.1 Product quality improvement. 12
5.2.2 Product differentiation.. 13
5.3 Strengthen brand value through marketing strategy.. 14
5.3.1 Advertising, Communications and PR.. 14
5.3.2 Distribution Channel 14
5.4 Search for new market opportunities. 15
References: 16
Appendix A – About BlackBerry: 20
1. Introduction:
Research In Motion (RIM) was one of the global leaders in wireless innovation,
revolutionised the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry solution in
1999 (BlackBerry, 2014). Since then, BlackBerry products and services have continued to
change the way millions of people around the world stay connected. In 2013, a new series
of Blackberry 10 was launched by BlackBerry, which was a re-designed, re-engineered
and re-invented product line. Apart from the new mobile experience introduced to global
BlackBerry users, a new name for the company was also introduced – Research In Motion
now operates globally under the iconic name BlackBerry.
The current BlackBerry product line includes the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, BlackBerry
smartphones, software for businesses and accessories.
In this report, the current brand issues along with the brand analysis and brand audit would
be discussed. Towards the end relevant strategic recommendations for the brand would be
stated.
2. Brand Issues:
Since the first BlackBerry RIM 900 was released in 1996, Blackberry became a very
successful brand in the following decade. Williamson (2013) stated that BlackBerry was
not only the leader in smartphone technology, it was pretty much the only company to
even offer what might be called a smartphone ten years ago. Blackberry is well known as a
business smartphone, and it is the first phone which had integrated superb functions such
as push messaging, email, QWERT keyboard, instant messenger (BBM) and text
messaging. Blackberry is also famous as a security device, and the biggest fan attracted by
the security features could be the U.S. government.
However, BlackBerry was failed to maintain its success since Android and iPhone
competed in the smartphone market. BlackBerry used to hold a market share of over 50%
in the U.S. market in Q2 2009, however, it was down to less than 10% in 2012 in the same
market. Furthermore, The BlackBerry brand would always rank in the 100 biggest global
brands, but the situation dramatically changed in 2013, the ailing BlackBerry brand has
plummeted off the list (Ligaya, 2013).
The tough situations of BlackBerry have still not improved even after the release of
Blackberry 10. According to Miller and Lam (2013), the base company of the brand which
in Waterloo, cut 4,500 jobs and tool a write down of as much as $960 million for unsold
inventory of its Z10 phone. The company almost agreed to be sold for $4.7 billion to go
private (Miller & Lam, 2013), however, the company finally switched to another plan,
raising $1 billion in cash with a debt issue and introducing a new CEO (Cooper, 2013).
After Blackberry introduced its new CEO John Chen, a series of new strategies for
rebuilding the brand were introduced (Blackberry Annual Report, 2014). The Company
announced that it intends to focus on three key strategic initiatives:
(1) Returning the Company to its core strengths of enterprise and security
(2) Implementing changes in the Company’s Devices business to provide operational
flexibility to meet the needs of its customers and to mitigate the financial risk to the
Company
(3) Transitioning to an operating unit organisational structure consisting of Enterprise
Services, Messaging, QNX Embedded business and Devices business.
3. Brand Inventory:
3.1 Introduction
According to Keller (2013), the purpose of the brand inventory is to provide a
comprehensive profile of how all the products and services sold by a company are
marketed and branded. Profiling each product or service requires that all associated brand
elements be identified as well as the supporting marketing campaign. In other words, it is
necessary to catalogue the following for each product or service sold; the names, logo’s,
symbols, characters, packaging or slogans or other trademarks used (Appendix A); and the
inherent product attributes or characteristics of the brand and the pricing, communications
and distribution and any other relevant marketing activity to the brand.
3.2 Target Market Segment
The original target market for Blackberry consisted of enterprise and government users. An
overview of Blackberry’s recent target market shows 3 main segments on the basis of
occupation, behavior segmentation and income. Blackberry’s main segment consists of
professionals and tech-savvy men and women with high-income.
3.3 Values & Attributes
The blackberry brand values can be categorised as below:
Rational:
Alert and well informed
Street smart
Approachable
Simple & straight forward
Emotional:
Confident: focused on the task at hand
Be first
Compete
Bold & clever
3.4 SWOT analysis
Strengths:
High market share provides Blackberry a good platform for future development. The good
financial situation of the company is undoubtedly another advantage for its future
development, for instance, its account base grew by almost 80% in 2009 because of the
stronger sales (Financial annual report, 2009).
In terms of Blackberry the product itself, it has tremendous advantages. Recent research
shows that 49.9 % participants responded that Blackberry has various function and
majority of participants agreed that Blackberry has good quality. The design of the
