RIM holds ‘white glove’ marketing events to demo new BB10 devices

OTTAWA--BlackBerry, formerly RIM Ltd., is holding a series of “white glove” events around the world to showcase its new BB10 devices to government and business customers and generate word of mouth discussion about them. The company plans 14 “Enterprise Experience Forums” in major cities across the globe, which are being supplemented by smaller, lower-key regional events, Paul Lucier, vice-president of government solutions at BlackBerry, said in a phone interview. The series kicked off with a forum in Toronto with 1,500 retail and enterprise participants, Lucier said. BlackBerry is also carrying on a tradition of running smaller-scale “lunch and learn” sessions and breakfast sessions to get its new devices into the hands of customers so they can experience them for themselves. BlackBerry, a Waterloo, Ont.-based company, has an opportunity to create a lot of buzz by combining advertising campaigns with “reach out” activities and consumer word of mouth, said Michael McDowell, senior director of channel marketing at BlackBerry, who was also on the call with Lucier. “It’s far more powerful to hear somebody use a device and say, ‘It’s a great device and you should get one,’ than it is to see something on a TV screen,” McDowell said. Last week, Research In Motion changed its name to BlackBerry and launched its new BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system along with new Z10 and Q10 smartphones. The Z10 device became available from Canadian wireless carriers on Feb. 5 and the Q10, a keyboard-equipped device, will be available later this year. “As it rolls out in the Middle East and in Indonesia and across the world, there’s going to be very unique, localized activities that take place as well, to supplement that consistent approach,” Lucier added. At a “white glove” forum in Ottawa on Thursday geared towards government clients, Nick Dawson, director of national sales for BlackBerry Canada, highlighted the Z10’s enterprise and consumer features in a keynote speech, which was followed by a hands-on session where participants got to play with the device. He said BlackBerry’s heritage lies in its enterprise security features and that those are no longer enough. “We have to put the consumer features in,” Dawson said. “Gone are the days when you could deploy devices to somebody with plain text, email and a calendar, and expect them to be happy with it, because they’re just going to go out and find another way to do what they want to do.” McDowell said the company is doing much of the marketing for BB10 business and government customers, a key base of BlackBerry users in the United States and Canada. He said the company is enlisting the help of marketing firms for celebrity ad campaigns that include “BlackBerry ambassadors” such as film director Robert Rodriguez, writer Neil Gaiman and Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys. “For both the U.S. and Canada on the enterprise B2B side, it’s very much hands on, what we’re calling white glove,” he said. “We kicked off, from a consumer’s perspective, with a Super Bowl ad, and it really started to dial up our digital advertising, which is all geared around driving awareness of the new platform to show the U.S. market that we have something new,” McDowell said. BlackBerry launched the new devices in Canada and the United Kingdom last week. Users in the United States must wait until March, where McDowell said the company was prepared for a delayed launch as different carriers work on different timelines. BlackBerry is starting to work with U.S.-based carriers on promotion, he said. McDowell said the company has about one million government customers in North America, a customer base that has been stable over the past year. He said the key to growing its enterprise and government base is making sure that it is aware of new features that can improve workplace functionality and efficiency. BlackBerry representatives have been preparing enterprise and government clients for the switch to the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 platform, he said, which allows BlackBerrys, as well as Apple Inc. iOS and Google Inc. Android devices, to be managed from the centralized system. In the past, McDowell said, some enterprise and government clients locked down their devices, reducing them to email functionality. “Now, we want to make sure people are aware that you have that option to lock it down but you’re potentially locking down some features that really benefit the end user’s productivity and efficiency,” Lucier said. The new devices offer a BlackBerry Screen Share feature for seamlessly sharing large documents, which he said is useful for small business owners. “If you don’t have a massive IT budget, the ability to screen share and share a massive document over video chat is quite a powerful tool for somebody in a small business setting,” Lucier said. He also pointed to BlackBerry Balance, a feature that separates the handset into a work device and a personal device. McDowell said the new devices have so far been well received, with carriers in Canada and the U.K. reporting sellouts and consumer lineups in many areas. Thornsten Heins, president and CEO of BlackBerry, said in a statement Wednesday that Feb. 5 was the “best day ever” in sales for the launch of a BlackBerry smartphone in Canada. Rogers spokeswoman Michelle Kelly said in an emailed statement that the company sold more BlackBerry smartphones on Feb. 5 than on any other day in Rogers’ history. “Some stores have temporarily sold out of the BlackBerry Z10 and additional inventory has been shipped to Rogers retail locations across Canada,” she said. Carriers BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. said they’ve seen a positive response to the new devices. “Since we launched BlackBerry Z10 pre-order on telusmobility.com on January 30, we have seen a very positive response from customers,” Donna Ramirez, a spokeswoman for Telus, said in an emailed statement. Bell spokesman Albert Lee said in an emailed statement that preorders for the Z10 at Bell were higher than any other previous BlackBerry device. He said Bell saw an “intense interest” in the Z10 on Tuesday. “Sales are quite robust,” Lee said. —With reporting by Danika Grenier at dgrenier@thewirereport.ca and editing by Simon Doyle at sdoyle@thewirereport.ca

RIM holds ‘white glove’ marketing events to demo new BB10 devices

News | February 8, 2013

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