Why I’m Wedded to My Blackberry™
Who says high-tech products don’t evoke the same emotional response as traditional consumer brands?
I love my Blackberry.
It wakes me up in the morning with a few gentle beeps, let’s me quickly peruse my morning e-mails in bed, reminds me of my meetings, let’s me text message with a QWERTY keyboard and syncs up to my Outlook calendar and task list with a click of a button.
I don’t even have the new Blackberry Pearl, which makes the old Blackberry look big and clunky. Nor do I have integrated speakerphone, but I like the fact that I can connect a Bluetooth speakerphone to my car visor or prop it on my desk for hands-free conversations.
Despite all the bad press during RIM’s patent infringement lawsuit this past year, I never considered jumping ship. Why?
A classic case of brand loyalty. In delivering an efficient mobile e-mail/phone solution to me when no one else could, they hooked me. My Blackberry isn’t just a technology device, it has become an extension of me. I even put up with T-mobile’s customer support telephone triage, because when I finally escalate to a Blackberry RIM specialist, I’ll be with best and the brightest.
Blackberry, you’ve really got a hold on me!
The Gift of Brand
The CEO of a small start-up company in an emerging technology told me at a Silicon Valley industry event that she didn’t think she had to think about branding her company because “brand is something for big companies.” That is the conventional wisdom: Branding is for Coca-Cola, Apple, BMW, Nike, Bloomingdale’s and VISA, but not for small or medium-sized businesses—especially those companies that aren’t consumer-oriented. What an opportunity missed!
All companies and organizations (even individuals!) have brands. Some are good brands, some are bad brands. Some are quiet brands, some are loud brands. Some organizations make the effort to guide how their brand is perceived, other leave it to the fates—or, worse yet, their competitors.
Demystifying Brand on Podcast
“Branding is a little like the old line about pornography—hard to define but you’ll know it when you see it.”
Did this grab your attention? I thought so. This was Steve Bengston’s intro to my 12-minute interview on “Demystifying Brand” on the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Start-up Show December 7.
If you missed it, click here.
