Time and time again, I see big creative ideas (as well as bad ideas) generated by the old school advertising guys. I know that for the most part that is still where the big budgets are and it’s not that great ideas don’t come from the digital guys, but the vast majority of the time it’s digital folks executing banner ads or web site designs based on some larger campaign that came from the traditional guys.
The problem is not that we need to give more time to the digital guys or even to let them lead campaigns. The problem is that we need to stop seeing digital and tradition as two different things. We are all just a bunch of creative people coming up with great ideas. Whether or not they become a web site, a print piece, a TV ad or something completely different, it doesn’t matter.
This could have been a TV spot, a print campaign, turned into banner ads, or an entire campaign, instead, it’s just a video produced for YouTube:
Seen at Paris-Photo, German-born, China-based Michael Wolf’s Tokyo Compression series, taken on the city’s subway, is literally breathtaking. Faces of Tokyo commuters are pressed up against condensation-soaked windows, creating small pools of mist as they breathe in and out, struggling for air.
Okay, so this is just a bit of rambling off the top of my head, but it occurred to me that there is a solution out there for RIM that might save the BlackBerry as well as open a door for another company. The solution is that Amazon needs to buy RIM. I hate to say it because it would be yet another example of a Canadian company going south of the border, but I think the partnership between the two will be mutually beneficial and give BlackBerry the biggest piece missing from it’s offerings: content.
When I look at what RIM’s biggest problem is, it is that people have stopped buying their product. (This is not entirely true-in many markets BlackBerry is still growing, but they have squandered their commanding lead.) Why? Because people want more from them.
After doing a very non-scientific survey of BB owners and non BB owners, many have simply said they will not buy a BB because they are behind in both hardware and software. But I would argue that there was a time where iPhone hardware was behind BB and yet people still went out and bought them in droves. The motivation IMO was the experience. People wanted to have a futuristic touch-screen device. People wanted something that was cool and exciting. And people wanted apps. But people have stayed with the iPhone and adopted Android because they have continued to offer more.
Apps are easy to port or copy and can be delivered as webpages are now (i.e. not through an ‘app store’). And the RIM hardware will catch up, as will the OS (with QNX next year). Apple have seen the long term plan and have realized that these devices (and the future devices that won’t be in our pockets, but around our houses, in our cars and eventually everywhere) are going to just be windows into a world of content: web pages, social feeds, music, video, magazines, books, etc. So really, whoever has access to the best content and the best experience accessing it are going to be the company that people want to buy their device from (just like how easy access to loads of apps helped make the iOS and Android platforms.)
Currently, there is an online content race happening. With Netflix splitting their DVD mail service off (genius if you ask me, for this reason), Amazon stepping up their offerings, Blockbuster, iTunes, Redbox, Hulu and more, you can bet that partnerships will develop between devices and content services. And as I mentioned before, those devices that come with access to great content will be more popular.
So, with the future of devices being content, there is still great hope for BlackBerry. How? They need content. And who has great literary, music and video content? Amazon. I think that a partnership between BlackBerry and Amazon would give BlackBerry an advantage that really only Apple currently has.
Amazon + BlackBerry = success.
Jesus, I ramble sometimes.
A lot of people ask me if I think the new Torch will be a good phone and if they should buy one. Personally, I have owned two BlackBerrys (not BlackBerries) and though I thought one was decent for its time (Pearl 8100) and the other is still excellent today (1st generation Bold), And though I feel that the new torch is going to be an excellent phone, I don’t think it’s going to be the phone that saves RIM. And the reason for that has nothing to do with the phone. In fact, I doubt there is a phone out there that could save RIM. It’s about the perception of the phone and RIM as a company.
RIM started out selling BlackBerrys to businesses and today that is still their largest user base. But people wonder how a PlayBook will fit in at work. And a lot of people wonder if a Torch is going to be as fun as an Android or Apple device for personal use. How I see this problem is that RIM is not doing a very good job of telling customers how they should perceive their products. I think they should trumpet their past successes in the business world and translate that to people’s personal lives. If a phone kicks ass for me at work, I’m more inclined to believe it will be a serious device for me in my personal live.
On the other side of the fence trust is quickly building in iOS and Android as business platforms–despite the fact that people are not as confident in those devices for business–simply because they do so much to support people’s personal lives. And now people can’t live without them, so it becomes natural for people to want to use them at work.
I really think that if RIM are going to succeed in turning the ship around and grabbing large portions of market share, they need to educate customers on what their phones can do. They already have the confidence of the business market and they should build on that and allow people to fall in love with the phone at work so that it will slowly creep into their personal lives. How to kill 7 hours on a flight: crush the powerpoint presentation, queue up several emails, then play angry birds and watch a movie.
Something Apple did really well when marketing the iPhone was to demonstrate that it can do a hell of a lot of things (there’s an app for that, this is going to change everything, so what do you want your iPhone to be today?) RIM has made a fatal assumption by thinking that everyone believes RIM can build a product like Apple or one of the many excellent Android devices. Touting the PlayBook as having Flash doesn’t really tell me what it can do and doesn’t convince me that BlackBerry has made a good product (though Flash Gordon by Queen was an awesome track).
One last example to hammer this point home (just to prove that Apple is not the only one who has this figured out): http://www.htc.com/www/tablets/htc-flyer/ The videos on this page make me want an HTC Flyer, but the PlayBook is a better product. The only reason I know that is because I poured through tonnes of reviews and comparisons and really looked at what the PlayBook can do. But why do I have to do the research? Why doesn’t RIM save me the trouble and just tell me, educate me and convince me that their products can do everything the other products can? Make me feel like their phone will empower me the way other smart phones do and THEN show me how it can do things my smart phone can’t.
P.S. Whoever it was at RIM who said the company needs to be renamed from RIM to BlackBerry deserves a raise.
It’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve been trying to figure some things out. I also started a new job which is slightly all-time consuming. But I’ve also been really trying to find a reason to write and for a long while, nothing seemed to be inspiring me. Recently, work has felt a lot like it did in 2001 when all the money fell out of the web and innovation went through the floor.
Web 2.0 was a bit of a revolution, but it’s not really anything tangible. Social’s pretty neat, but it’s kind of hard to get excited about getting $5 coupons on Facebook and I’m really feeling that the excitement of social is kind of past. Mobile is neat but to me it has yet to really transcend the web and transform our lives. And I guess at the end of the day I’m still waiting for the thing that’s truly going to give me the same high I had when I was first discovering the internet. I guess I’m still trying to figure this whole thing out.
But I was inspired by something recently. It was a simple idea that I found in a post on Smashing magazine (http://bit.ly/k5yU0R). Make something yourself. The thing is if you’re not inspired, then there has to be room for improvement. And while all of these digital platforms and ideas out there are not very exciting on their own, there must be millions of ways they can be combined and enhanced to do some truly amazing things.
And one of the best parts about making something for yourself is that YOU are the client. You are the person who benefits from what you make. And if it helps you, it’s probably going to help other people too.
