ARN

RIM says 'Be Bold' cartoon is not a new BlackBerry ad campaign

Update to blog clarifies that cartoon infographic is 'intended to be... fun'

Research in Motion said its Be Bold cartoon superheroes unveiled in a recent blog infographic were always "intended to be a bit of fun" and are not a new ad campaign.

The BlackBerry maker, in an update posted Tuesday, admitted that its original blog, posted last week, had received "a lot of attention over the last couple of days."

The original blog had many bloggers and BlackBerry users criticizing RIM's lack of marketing prowess, an issue the recently installed RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said he plans to address, partly by hiring a new chief marketing officer.

RIM's updated blog explained how the Be Bold concept evolved, starting with RIM's asking BlackBerry Twitter followers to submit New Year's Eve resolutions on how they plan to "Be Bold" in 2012. RIM said it received 35,000 such resolutions via Twitter, Facebook and on giant billboards in Times Square.

"As we looked at the resolutions and the data, majority patterns and categories emerged," the updated blog note says. "We decided to organize the data and share it in a fun way and the result is the infographic. This is not a new ad campaign."

By virtue of calling the event "Be Bold" in 2012, and creating its youthful superhero cartoon, RIM was hoping to associate young users with its Bold line of smartphones .

Marketing its smartphones to younger users, especially in the US, has been a major strategy for RIM for years. RIM's traditional base has always been with workers familiar with its physical keyboard BlackBerry devices.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .

Read more about mobile and wireless in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Topic Center.

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

More about: BlackBerry, Facebook, Motion, RIM, Topic
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the ARN comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: consumer electronics, Facebook, hardware, hardware systems, Mobile and Wireless, rim, smartphones, twitter
ARN Directory | Distributors relevant to this article
Aquion , Brightpoint Australia , ICT Distribution , Leader Computers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events.
ARN Distributor Directory
Find distributors by name | vendor | location
Channel Deals
/deals/aca-pacific/435_fujifilm-lto-10-for-10-promotion-ends-june-30t
ACA Pacific

Fujifilm LTO 10 For 10 Promotion. Ends June 30th, 2012.

More details »
ARN Vendor Directory
Find vendors by name | category

iAsset is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales,marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.