Brand Implementation: Report and Plan - Blackberry Case Study - Assignment Example

 BRAND IMPLEMENTATION Brand implementation Introduction Blackberry is a brand that is associated with the production of mobile devices. The brandis popular for the production of mobile devices that are of high technological standards. However, recently there has been a decline in the level of innovation and creativity in the development of new products. This makes them competitively disadvantaged when compared to competitors such as Samsung, Apple, and Google. Blackberry has come to the realization that there is a need for changing the brand’s identity towards a younger, fresher, and more creative appearance. Therefore, they need a brand extension for the purpose of creating awareness for this step. What makes this campaign necessary is the need to make sure that the brand has the ability of attracting people with diverse lifestyles as opposed to when they used to focus on corporations and their employees. Background and industry context Upon introduction of Blackberry to the market, the brand was well known for email. They even began to provide emailing services on non-Blackberry related mobile products such as Palm Treo. This was made possible by the proprietary BlackBerry Connect software (Kotler 2013, p. 206). Because of the type of the products produced under this model, they were often associated with people leading certain types of lifestyles. In most cases, corporations and employed were the ones who could benefit most from products under this brand. However, at the moment this is no longer the case (Blount, 2010, p. 131) . At the moment, business people opt for products that can be easily be integrated into their lifestyles. This is a result of the advancement in technology and innovation in the industry. Statistics show that more than 60% adults own mobile devices all over the world. It can also be noticed that this is a general increment in use of mobile devices. However, there is also a notable increase in the rate at which teenagers are using mobile devices. Because of intensified competition in the industry innovation remains to be the main determinant of dominants (Johnston 2010, p. 199). Competitors The most dominant competitor in the industry is Samsung. Looking at Samsung it is noticeable that they highly depend on patenting new innovations so that they can make sure that they are able to avail creative products to the market. Since the early 1990s, Samsung has had a good relationship with the Russian Academy of Science. The Russian Academy of Science has been one of the most significant sources of the company’s innovation (Vincent 2012, p. 134). Creativity with regard to accommodation of people of all social classes has been highly important for Samsung. Apple on the other side is known for their high levels of innovation. However, the difference between Apple and Samsung is that Apple does not have the level of diversity that Samsung has. However, with regard to the target market they have been able to produce products that are attractive to people of different lifestyles as long as they are able to afford them (Johnston & Evers 2005, p. 219). With regard to their innovation, they usually make sure that the projects are handled by three separate groups as soon as they get to the level where they are highly promising. As for Google, the main concentration of the brand is always on customer’s experience. Looking at their product it can be easily deduced that their products are highly customer based. Google is able to do so by carrying out researches that are aimed at making sure that they are much aware of the needs of the market (Wilson& Blumenthal 2008, p. 227). From the needs the brand’s innovation and creative team usually go ahead and design new products. Rationale There has been an evident growth in the industry. Allot of people would prefer mobile devices that can match the various aspects of their lifestyles. Even business people would not mind having mobile devices that help them with their social lives. Furthermore, players in the industry have also seen the need to design products that can appeal to diverse lifestyles (Sweeny 2013, p. 188). In the industry, it has been noted that the youth make the highest percentage of consumers. This is the reason why it would be beneficial for the brand if it would consider creatively and innovatively design products that would be attractive to the youth. The company sees that it will be of benefit to them if they tried to focus on the youth because the market segment that they had previously targeted is highly competed for by other brands. At the moment young people are only conversant with IOS and Android (Mittal, Gupta & Sambells 2010, p. 167). Therefore, in order to win them, Blackberry will have to develop products that will give the youth an alternative to Android and IOS. Challenges and opportunities There are a number of challenges that Blackberry is likely to face in the process of extending their brand. One thing that is clearly evident is that they will have to spend allot of resources for the extension process. When developing a new product they will definitely have to spend on researches, studies and development (Sabeva 2010, p. 222). This is something that might cost them their financial resources and time. Another challenge that they are likely to face in this case is that they will not have an assurance that their product will do well in the market. One thing that is created is that even their competitor have already invested in the market segment that the company is currently trying to focus on (Adamson 2006, p. 207). The only thing that the organization can do to counter this challenge is to make sure that they are creative in coming up with a new product that none of their competitors have offered yet. Unlike adults who are usually comfortable with the products that they have already realized to be good, young people always like trying out new things. This is something that the company can take as an advantage and come up with a product that is more appealing to the youth. Despite the fact that the other players in the industry might already have some products that target the same market segment, Blackberry can take this opportunity and uses a marketing campaign that will associate the new product to the lifestyle of the targeted segment (Adubato 2011, p. 175). Choosing suitable branding agency The choice of the branding agency to be used in this case will be dependent on a number of factors. For instance, the company will choose the branding agency depending on the number of years that they have been in operation and their success record (Afzal 2012, p. 211). The organization must also make sure that the branding agency used has had a successful branding campaign that involved developing products that targeted the youth. This will give the company assurance of the effectiveness of the branding agency. Agency and approach The chosen agency in this case is Nashville Branding Agency. The choice of this agency was guided by the fact that they have a great success record and have been in the branding business long enough to have the needed experience on how to handle the situation (Gunelius 2009, p. 213). The main focus in this case would be to attract youth through brand extension. The plan Despite the fact that the materials that were used in the production of blackberry’s big touch screen were of high quality, research proves that many people had the opinion that the design was clunky. In the brand extension campaign the company is looking at changing the look and feel aspects of their products (Tai 2013, p. 159). With regard to the look the company should consider the introduction of a look that is likely to be attractive to the youth. This will specifically be challenging because they will have to make sure that the design that they come up with is unique and cannot be identified with any of the other brands. One way through which they can do thins is through actively involving their target market in the development of the physical design. It would be appropriate if the company developed prototypes and sample them with the target market and observe how they will react to it (Kapferer 2012, p. 137). This brand extension campaign is not entirely about the physical look of the products developed. It is important to note that the application content of the new products is something that none of their competitors can offer. Even before looking at the application content, it should be noted that Blackberry needs a new operating system. The one that they currently use is less appropriate for the brand extension program because of the market segment that they targeted previously. Most of their competitors either use Android and IOS operating systems. In order to be unique and attractive they should develop an operating system that is superior to both IOS and Android. For instance, Android users have expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that there are always advert displays on the display (Kapferer 2001, p. 171). Coming up with an OS that does not have these shortcomings, especially those that are raised mostly by youths will be an advantage to this company. Apart from the operating system the company should also make sure that their apps are easily available and are in the nature that the youth want. Because of the changes in the preference of the youth it would be have benefit is the company come up with apps that are easily upgraded and modified to fit the preference of their target market (Simmons 2009, p. 198). The rollout Blackberry will use approximately 4.76 million pounds in technical programming. The expenditure is so because they already have an app store, which means that they are already familiar with such an environment. They will also spend about 1 million pounds in the creation of brand awareness. The process of brand extension is likely to take a relatively long period. In order to express the timeline of the activities it will be in order to do so using the Gantt chart (Kapferer 2008, p. 123). ID Task name Predecessors Duration 1 Start 1 0 days 2 Problem statement 1 1 day 3 Research on market preference 2 35 days 4 Design 6 months 5 Development 4 months 6 Prototyping 2 months 7 Introduction 2 days 8 Improvement 12 months In creation of public awareness it would be advisable for the company to use television and social media in passing on the message to their targeted market. The youth are known to be the people with the highest usage of social media. Given their love for entertainment the use of television advertisement will also be advisable. Some communication channels such as newspapers are highly discouraged due to the fact that people in the age group that is targeted rarely read newspapers. However, some types of magazines such as fashion and entertainment magazines can be of high benefit to this process (Rosenbaum-Elliott,Percy & Pervan 2011, p. 209) ROI and testing For the company to know the extent to which the brand extension program was successful, it is important to compare the ex post and ex ante brand equity with reference to the investments that were made on the program (Simmons 2009, p. 278). This will help them in knowing whether or not the program was successful. Conclusion There are various reasons as to why business organizations usually carry out brand extension. As for the case of Blackberry the brand extension program will change the market’s view of the brand. The brand will no longer be just active to businesspeople only, but also to all other people with special attention being paid on the youth. Instead of doing exactly what their competitors have done in order to attract youth the company is going to take a creative and innovative approaches to the situation. Creativity and innovation will able them to produce new products something that their targeted market is always attracted to. Bibliography Adamson, AP 2006, Brandsimple: how the best brands keep it simple and succeed, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Adubato, S 2011, You are the brand, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J. Afzal, S 2012, Factors Influencing Successful Brand Extension Into Related & Unrelated Categories, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, Saarbrücken. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:101:1-201209024652. Blount, J 2010, People buy you the real secret to what matters most in business, Wiley, Hoboken, N.J. http://www.books24x7.com/marc.asp?bookid=34883. 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Mittal, K, Gupta, S & Sambells, J 2010, BlackBerry for work productivity for professionals, Apress, [Berkeley, Calif.]. http://www.books24x7.com/marc.asp?bookid=34581. Rosenbaum-Elliott, R, Percy, L & Pervan, S 2011, Strategic brand management, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Sabeva, M 2010, How far can a brand stretch and still stick? brand extension dilemma in industrial adhesives, Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam. Simmons, J 2009, Twenty-six ways of looking at a blackberry: how to release the creativity of your brand, A. & C. Black, London. Simmons, J 2009, Twenty-six ways of looking at a blackberry: how to release the creativity of your brand, A. & C. Black, London. Sweeny, A 2013, Blackberry planet the story of research in motion and the little device that took the world by storm, Wiley, Hoboken, N.J. http://rbdigital.oneclickdigital.com. Tai, J 2013, Brand zero: the complete branding guide for start-ups. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=672266. Vincent, L 2012, Brand real: how smart companies live their brand promise and inspire fierce customer loyalty, American Management Association, New York. Wilson, JS & Blumenthal, I 2008, Managing brand you seven steps to creating your most successful self, AMACOM/American Management Association, New York. http://www.books24x7.com/marc.asp?bookid=33323. Read More