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The BlackBerry Is Fired Up
The BlackBerry Is Fired Up
Vote on whether this “attack ad” enhances BlackBerry’s brand.
By Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Posted Tuesday, March 3, 2009 - 12:44pm
What to do when you’re trailing early adopters in the fierce touch-screen phone marketplace? This high-production-value, high-cost-per-second ad for BlackBerry goes to the core of the competition. In this installment of YouTube Brand Watch, vote on whether the ad enhances or detracts from BlackBerry’s brand.
| Name: | BlackBerry Bullet Shows Apple Who's Boss! |
| Stats: | At 17 seconds long, this may be one for the shortest so-called “viral” videos circulating on YouTube. But it has potential. It's techie, and, more importantly, it takes a jab at Apple. It emerged on YouTube at the end of February and already has attracted almost 500,000 viewings and mentions in more than 180 blogs in its first week. |
| What you see: | A black screen, followed by the sound of handgun being cocked. Bang! A lovely red apple comes into view. Closer-up now. Closer. To the left of the screen, a hurtling black object blasts through the apple’s core. Out the other side emerges, slower now, a bulletlike blackberry (the fruit). As it sails across the screen, we’re told, “The world's first touch-screen BlackBerry. Nothing can touch it." That’s it. We don't even get the customary disclaimer, “No fruits were hurt in the filming of this video.” |
| Takeout/Takeaway: | The inside buzz is that this is a “spec” video produced by New York-based creative shop Guava, which reportedly posted it to YouTube sans RIM sign-off. Still, its nervy take, firing a broadside directly at Apple, has the techies buzzing. Once again, cue the debate: Who's best? Is the BlackBerry Storm an iPhone killer? |
| Social Media Effect: | For well over a year, there's been a fierce battle for consumer share of mind on YouTube for touch-screen smartphones, pitting Apple's iPhone against Google's G1 Android and the BlackBerry Storm. The iPhone is the most discussed brand of all. How can BlackBerry steal some of its thunder? With a loaded gun, maybe? |
YouTube BrandWatch is The Big Money's exploration into how the world's best-known businesses, so adept at managing their images offline, are being perceived online, where control is harder to come by. Every week, The Big Money features a corporate-themed video that's had significant viewership on YouTube: some approved, some unapproved, some mashed-up combinations of the two. And we'll ask our readers to vote on how the video affects the brands. We think the responses will surprise you, and provide a window onto what is fast becoming the most important playground for corporate games. (Note: This feature has no official relationship to YouTube or its owner, Google.)
