Listen to your audience! BlackBerry Ping

Listening to your target audience is a marketer’s daily business. Next up is making sure that this feedback is spread throughout the organisation in such a way that product and service can be adjusted to the wishes of the target audience. This week, I had a chat with a 20 year old intern who’ll be performing several different tasks for us. I think it’s always good to find out about what makes a 20 year old tick, and see what’s ‘hot’ among his or her peers. Very good in fact, because us, the 40 plus ones, talk about the younger generations all the time without really placing ourselves within that particular target audience. Marketing people at Vodafone, KPN and T-Mobile obviously do that all the time, but I think in business software, we’re less good at it. ‘Hyves is for young teenagers, we email when we want to meet up with friends and Twitter is MSN for the oldies…’ right, so, that’s us told. We’re all so excited about Twittering, thinking that we’re really connecting with the younger generations, whilst they’re completely ignoring the medium. Quite an entertaining observation.

So how about mobile phones? Young people have access to mobile phones at an increasingly young age. Their financial situation, however, is sometimes less than ideal (of course, the above 40′s aren’t always role models in this respect, but that’s an altogether different story). BlackBerry has worked this observation extremely well. The beauty of it lies in its simplicity: young people text. Everywhere. All the time. Which means parents have to chip in because their youngster’s phone bill is, once again, sky-high. Although I’m not at all a BlackBerry fan, I have to admit that in this case they’ve hit on an ingenious and consistent product marketing strategy. BlackBerry is so incredibly popular among young people, because it allows them to Ping each other, which is the same as sending free texts. Although Ping is now also available for Android and iPhone, which greatly expands the user group, Ping is firmly connected to BlackBerry, so in terms of positioning they have nothing to fear. So what exactly is so ingenious about BlackBerry’s strategy?

• BlackBerry’s product and brand used to be purely aimed at business. By adopting this strategy the brand has managed to excite the young generation, the consumer
• looking at BlackBerry products, the brand hasn’t had to invest in any significant adjustments to attract the young generation; the phones are still black, not pink, and they all have keyboards
• Blackberry has looked at and stayed close to what young people really want. So no chatting or sharing experiences, no social media integration and what not; it’s all about free texting in a way they were already used to.
• Blackberry has managed to give Ping content through focus, even long after competitors were offering free messaging apps

The 2 latter reasons are in my opinion the most extraordinary. They show how people in general like security and familiar surroundings, and that they’re willing to change, but only one step at a time. And by ‘people in general’ I don’t mean the innovators and early adapters, but the general public. Someone at BlackBerry must have really made a case for keeping Ping simple, without too many frills. Make it an experience which exactly simulates the way young people use texting; only then can you make a link with traditional texting  – but you offer the added bonus of this version being free! Well done indeed, because I bet that person was inundated with various ideas to make the app more social, hip and groovy. Although I’m not at all a BlackBerry fan, I think it’s amazing to see how by listening and empathising a big brand like BlackBerry can trigger young people, the consumer, all over Europe, to use their product.

Author: Mark Appel
Marketing Manager Twinfield Online Accounting