Thursday, March 22, 2012

BlackBerry Boys- here , there and everywhere !

                            Heard as a caller tone when I called a friend... 

Hello. I'm home right now but cannot find the phone. Please leave a message and I will call you back as soon as I find it......

Games people play and the gadgets that help them to- is of endless amusement.. I have grown up seeing the advent of mobile phones and this new gadget displacing pagers ( mercilessly that is ! ) and then slowly taking shape as a market.. I had an Alcatel phone ( as heavy as it can be but then BIG was BEAUTIFUL then)  .. the only issue that an average mobile phone user had at that point of time was the INCOMING CALLS - which was charged ..... I had a BOSS ( who was an ASS No: 1 ) who would give MY number to the toms and dicks he met here and there and thus making me wriggle in discomfort and counting seconds ...... 

After all these years, I still do not have a Blackberry and yet the instrument has never stopped amusing me.. 

its differentiation and the cut above the rest.. the simple points of parity that defines the category membership and yet the amazing points of difference that keeps it above the rest of the category always left an awe in the Marketing guy in me... 

...the idea of a BB messenger , the PIN and all the stuff that made a BB a BB .... I remember a focus group we did for a Mobile phone client and the group as we talked became big and big and the pride with which a BB owner talks about the technology and the devise was immense. ----the prized possession that the owners have had it as - the suits and the big guys of business wore it over their other habiliments and displayed it with impunity is something that had very few parallels in the history of Marketing. . . . . 


 To be frank I had not seen a BB in an unfit hand before that, or may be I have not noticed the 'catch them young' fever that had caught RIM just like all other players in the  YOUNG Indian market place. 

 It was not easy & natural - the transition from old, bald, business and corporate to the colourful and funky young- of course the rich urban young of India .. BB had to do a lot of POP and POD readjustments.. it had to make the products looks young and cheeky, it had to have a lot of apps and platforms that the new TG wanted and (HELL) it had to advertise - to ensure that the new TG knows about it and is convinced why the BB is also a mobile phone plus whatever they wanted and also to ensure that the OLD TG was not annoyed and hence made an exit. I am never tired of seeing this we are the BB boys ad.. the shock on the faces of the old TG seeing the new TG is quite  a winsome one.. hats off to O&M guys for the same..  

and the results...?

Vodafone increased its share of BlackBerry users by 96%, nearly double its 50% target and within the first four months of the campaign it signed up nearly 154,000 additional subscribers (of which 35,000 were pre-paid). Its post-paid customer base grew 74% from 160,000 pre-campaign to 279,000 post-campaign.....

Well  ! that was some time back...Now that the " sleep with me and hey you sleep with me too" mess is kind of settled, BB is more bold and is all about telling its TG that we are what we are to you, and be with us..With the Curves, Bolds, Torches, Styles, Pearls, Tours, Storms and Playbooks and much more, RIM in India is in a boom, much above the I phone and even the Nokia .(Nokia and Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry phones , sell more devices in India, where smartphone shipments are forecast to grow almost 70% a year until 2015, helping mitigate their market-share losses in the US and Europe)..... 

and now this new Ad reincarnate.......




The reincarnation of the same 5 BB boys who are expressing their grief and frustration because of the transformation that has taken place since their previous campaign. While the previous film focused on how special they were because of their unique BlackBerry facilities, the current campaign depicts the dominance of youth over the BB Boys in terms of the youth usage patterns of the device. For instance, the Gen-Next not only chats through BlackBerry Messenger but also shares pictures, music, gossip and even takes the BB to pubs, malls, college – and not just the workplace...smart way to sell the new BB and its POP and POD to the new and old TG...


..This is quite amusing, considering the fact that across the world it is loosing its share and its stocks are falling...

.... the game is yet to begin and till then we can keep singing.. ": hey hey we are the black berry boys" . 

Adformula sincerely hope that soon people will not start singing ........

" we WERE the black berry boys ! hoo hoo hoo .....
 they took it every where and we threw it out..
 hoo hoo hoo, we were the black berry boys" !
Baby, how could you do this

I thought it was going to be just us,

But they took BBM everywhere

To the campus, to the nightclub and too the mall.
we WERE the black berry boys ! hoo hoo hoo .....
 they took it every where and we threw it out..
 hoo hoo hoo, we were the black berry boys..."

Amen ! 


***************************************************************

The lyrics:
Baby, how could you do this
I thought it was going to be just us,
But they took BBM everywhere
To the campus, to the nightclub and too the mall.
My suit is still cool
Got shine on my shoes
But they are the BlackBerry Boys
They Exchange pins
From Morning to Evening
Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys
We used to Chat
But they do much more
Setting their status
Sending pictures all on the move
They are the BlackBerry Boys
Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys
They use it for dating
It’s a work thing not a play thing
They are the Blackberry boys
They share music and videos and gossip
Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys
We used to chat
But they do much more
Setting their status
Setting pictures all on the move
They are BlackBerry Boys
Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys......

Credits:
Client: Vodafone India
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather (Mumbai)
National Creative Director: Rajiv Rao
Country Head – Team Vodafone: Kapil Arora
Sr. Creative Directors: Srreram Athray and Elizabeth Dias
Account Management: Sarang Wahal, Chatak Vakharia, Rohan Manglani
Production house: Nirvana Films
Director: Prakash Varma



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