Importance of Brand Identity

BlackBerry announced the release of their new smartphone the Blackberry 10 this week, and the tech world has been buzzing with reactions to the new device. For a brand that has become rather irrelevant over the last 5 years, the move reflects a bold new approach that hopes to revitalize the brand.

The brand image for BlackBerry since its heyday was the professional's phone. It was the first phone to offer internet and email connection, it had a qwerty keyboard which made typing more efficient, and a high level of security making it ideal for government jobs. As time progressed and the market developed though, BlackBerry failed to adapt. The famous keyboard became outdated, but instead of modernizing their product, they clung to the feature as a product differentiator. Unfortunately, few consumers appreciated it as much as they wanted to use a touch screen, and the result was an exodus of BlackBerry users moving toward the iPhone.

Now, with the BlackBerry 10, I would argue the product has lost any resemblance of its prior identity. It is now simply an iPhone imitator, one look at the design says it all. The BlackBerry now says "Look, I'm cool and hip too!" whereas it should have found whitespace in the market. This new release was an opportunity to re-establish the brand as the "professional" phone. The iPhone and Androids available are incredibly fun and hip, but BlackBerry should have created a device that was more of a tool than a toy. It is. after all. how they were successful in the first place. Consumers don't want an iPhone wanna-be, they want an iPhone or they want something differentiated.

Time will tell how the BlackBerry 10 fits into the market, but I think the failure to embrace its own brand identity is a critical flaw. Abandoning the outdated and infamous keyboard is one thing, but trying to create a better iPhone or Droid is a dead end endeavor. Brand identity is not something to abandon so easily, especially when you have a powerful and distinguished one as BlackBerry once did.