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'For BlackBerry, product experience is the key' [Financial Express (India)](Financial Express (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The 'BlackBerry' Boys advertisement created by Ogilvy and Mather in 2010 said it all-this smartphone brand wasn't meant only for stuffy corporate suits-the young and the savvy in India were naturally inclined to this high-end gizmo. And Research In Motion (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry smartphones, has been successful in realising that dream. Data collected by Cyber Media Research indicate that RIM had 13% share of India's smartphone market in 2010, up from 8% in 2009. Today, it has a range of models targeted at every possible consumer segment-senior management professionals, young executives, women, and even those who have barely crossed their teens. BlackBerry has been quick to understand the needs of its young customers. So, while it has a range of pink, pearl and crimson models to entice women, there's also a variety of flexible tariff plans to choose from, thus making it easy for young fans to turn BlackBerry loyalists. "We have built up a portfolio at different price points to target different segments of consumers," says Krishnadeep Baruah, director-marketing, RIM India. In June, it unveiled Blackberry Playbook in the tablet market of India, a market which is still nascent, but has attracted all the top brands with its growth potential. All along, product experience is what has made the BlackBerry stand apart in an increasingly crowded smartphone market. This month, as India awaits the launch of BlackBerry 9900, the latest from the RIM stable, the brand is yet again focusing on providing the right user experience to its customers. "For BlackBerry, product experience is the key. That is what the Blackberry brand stands for," says Baruah. For example, when Blackberry Playbook was launched, besides the core umbrella campaign which included TV, radio, print, digital, outdoor media, it wanted to create an experience of the product for the consumers. "We created demo zones for each of our outlets in eight cities where we had a trained person who could give the right experience of the product," explain Baruah. Recently, the brand's global creative account moved to BBDO Worldwide and with it, BlackBerry's creative agency in India now is BBDO India. The incumbent agency is Orchard Advertising (Leo Burnett's sister agency). In this interview with FE, Baruah talks about the journey of the BlackBerry brand in India, the core target audience of the brand, its future marketing strategies and the tablet market in India. BlackBerry entered the Indian market positioned as an enterprise phone for top executives constantly on the move. But it found its niche when it reinvented itself as a smartphone for the youth. In an interview with FE's Payal Khandelwal, Krishnadeep Baruah, director-marketing at Research In Motion India, talks about its successful youth marketing strategy, its plans to penetrate the smaller towns and cities of India, and the challenges therein. Edited excerpts. How has been BlackBerry's journey in India? We launched BlackBerry in India in October 2004 targeting the high-end corporate sector. Over the first few years, that was our core client - the enterprise segment. After this, people in the middle and junior management levels started aspiring for a BlackBerry. We started expanding our retail footprint in 2009. We built applications which were consumer-friendly. Two things that drove consumption were the use of net and social media interaction, specifically Facebook and Twitter, and most importantly, BlackBerry Messenger services (BBM). Unlike Facebook which tells you how many friends you have, BBM is about what are the friends that you have. Formation of groups was another revolution in BBM. Thus, social media helped in adoption and we are still strengthening that. BlackBerry did not advertise on TV for a long time and then there was 'Blackberry Boys' created by Ogilvy India for Vodafone-BlackBerry, which became immensely popular. How did that help the brand BlackBerry? We work very closely with our operators and we have been consistently doing campaigns with them since quite some time. We launched Curve and Pearl through joint campaigns with our leading operators and we continue to do that. In terms of television campaigns, we have done ads of Blackberry alone and joint ads with operators. Blackberry Boys was one of those campaigns. It was a fantastic film. The whole message about that Blackberry is not just for corporate guys came out beautifully through that film. Can you define your target audience? We have high-end enterprise users aged 35 years and above. This segment comprises mainly mid and senior management professionals who use the device extensively for their office purpose. We have taken leadership position in that segment. The second segment is the 22-35 years age group. Over the last one year, this segment has really grown for us. The other segment is slightly more younger- below 22 years. In the last 8-10 months, this segment has grown phenomenally. This segment comprises the youth who do not have the financial power today but have a big influence on what device they want to buy and on those who make purchases for them - such as their parents. This segment, which has a huge need to be connected, is growing for smartphones and specifically for BlackBerry. There is another segment which is emerging-women. We have done quite a few things to be relevant to this segment. How are you using digital as a marketing medium? We have been working hard over the last one year on the BlackBerry India website. The Blackberry India fan page on Facebook has 900,000 fans. Our India Twitter page allows people to get updates on the brand and stay connected with the latest stuff. Access to the India website from the mobile device has really taken off in the last five to six months. Also, we keep doing campaigns on the digital medium. What is BlackBerry's marketing strategy for the near term? We will continue to address the high-end consumer segment and the youth. We are launching some exciting new features and products later this year and we will communicate about that. Beyond that, people should be able to walk into the nearest store and experience the product. For example, BlackBerry Playbook was launched in eight cities with a core umbrella campaign which included TV, radio, print, digital, outdoor (airports). We created demo zones at each of our outlets where we had a trained person who could give the right experience of the product. For us, product experience is the key. That is what the Blackberry brand stands for. How will you target tier 2-3 cities? Our distribution in 2008 was limited to 15 towns and cities. We have now expanded to 80 towns and cities in India and a large part of that is emerging towns and cities. We launched a national promo for the Playbook but we are doing separate activities for each city. We are creating shop-in-shop Blackberry Experience Zones to create the experience of the product. How has the response to Blackberry Playbook been so far? How do you see the tablet market evolving? The response has been quite good. The Playbook does multi-tasking in the true sense as one can have multiple screens running at the same time. The tablet category is new and it is good for the category to have multiple players as it will help to grow the market. A lot of tablet consumption is happening due to the entertainment content and consumption is going to increase with localized entertainment content for each country. Copyright 2011 The Indian Express Online Media Ltd., distributed by Contify.com (c) 2011 The Indian Express Online Media Ltd., distributed by Contify.com |