NORTHERN PLANNER

I loathe Blackberries. Not only do I loathe the 'serious busines, work ethic' shtick that is the true culture around these things (at least for spoilt middle class people like me) I hate the fact they're crap at anything apart from email. Apps and other bolt ons are just, well, crap (unless you want to organise a riot and don't want the police to find out).

I, in spite of myself, love Iphones. I love the design, I love the functionality and I love the symbolism of creativity.

Which tells you more about me than it does about the brands of course. But while Samsung and others can steal some share from Apple with a similar experience and sharper pricing, Blackberry can't. It's just too crap and just too mired in its 'tools for business' heritage.

That's why crap like this won't work.

They have a big brand problem, but you don't fix it by trying to be something you're not.

And solve the product problem first.

By using a generic point of view that could be adopted by anyone involved in mobile telephony. Is there anything more generic that positoning yourself as the brand for 'glass half full people'?

I could forgive it if it was a bit more about phones for doers as opposed to flaneurs that are all talk and more action, but I don't take that from this. 

When a brand is in trouble, a useful rule of thumb is go back to what people liked about it when it was doing really well. Which brings us back to me.

I was forced to have a Blackberry for work for a year. It was a cock up with ordering accounts wouldn't change it for me. So I did everything I could to break the cursed thing, short of driving my car over it. But the plucky little bastard wouldn't break.

I had to wait for a change in company phone policy to get an Iphone that, let's face it, is as fragile you could give a hard stare and it would crack. Iphones are not hardy, they're just fun.

If I was in the scary position of being in charge of Blackberry (scarier for them) with no innovation coming through, to stop the haemorrhage of sales, I'd start with finding the connection between what's good about my product, the real culture around my brand and something in the lives of a decent amount real people.

Perhaps the Western assault on pleasure, and newfound respect for hard work over creativity might be a place to start. A phone that will not break no matter what is thrown at it, for workers that are too busy for phones that distract, that enable you to do your job well and don't want to do anything else.

Just saying.

By the way, in no way am I blaming the agency responsible, I don't know the brief, how directive the client was. Also, I'm not blaming the client, perhaps they got duff advice from their agency……..