BlackBerry - Changing Its Communication

Tracked By KARTHIK RAJA

When we hear the word BlackBerry, the first thing that comes to our mind is Corporate. The brand over the years  has built its position as an indispensable tool for today’s executive. Loaded with business friendly features like its highly successful and controversial push email service , its qwerty keypads , instant services and robust build quality, blackberry had few major competitors for a significant period of time.

If anything is constant in the technology world , it is the phenomenon of drastic and radical change. With a fresh start  in the humble Ipod, a rejuvenated Apple came up with an overwhelming product the IPhone. Add to it the evolution of tablets led by Ipad and the very successful Android operating system, Blackberry suddenly saw threat to its position.

Blackberry started of its response with the launch of its first touch screen based device named the Storm. It all set to enter the nascent but astoundingly growing tablet market with its Blackberry Playbook.

Blackberry’s communication in recent times however has gone a seemingly drastic with it looking to shed its hitherto official phone image and moving on to represent a cooler and stylish brand. It is aiming to catch its customers young.

The new set of very popular ads from the Blackberry stables represents this very trend with protagonists in their mid twenties. The first ad focused on the purchase of a first car is an effort in this direction with the brand seeking an emotional connect with the target group. The second is targeted at teenage customers and aims to build a sort of coolness about the brand in the minds of this segment.

The  company has also been investing in BTL activities with participation in prominent college festivals and corporate events. How well the brand manages to appeal to a new set of customers while keeping its original positioning intact is going to be  widely watched in the coming few months.

Nestea - Icy Cool And Animated

Tracked by KUMAR RAUNAK

Beverage partners worldwide (BPW),a joint venture between Coca Cola and Nestle, recently launched their ready to drink iced-tea brand, Nestea across the country after test marketing it in Mumbai. The product would be manufactured at Coca Cola India bottling plant at Guntur,Andhra pradesh. This launch could not have come at a better time for both the partners.With Nestle's almost stagnant market share in the chocolate category(25%) making it a distant second to Cadbury(70% share) and Coca cola's struggle to make inroads into non-carbonated beverage market dominated by players like Pepsico's Nimbooz and Tropicana, and Dabur's 'Real' fruit juice, it became imperative for both the companies to create buzz in the market with some exciting new launches. 

This product is expected to accomplish three objectives-

1.Take on Lipton iced-tea, the ready to drink brand from Unilever-Pepsico joint venture's stable.

2.Bolster Nestle's market share and growth performance in non-chocolate category to make up for the stagnant market share in the chocolate category.

3.Support Coca cola's only product in the non-carbonated beverage category, Minute Maid and take on a slew of products from the competitors' stable.

There are some conspicuous facts about Nestea which makes it an interesting launch, first the brand communication of being a refreshing and fun drink with a lemony flavour and yet predominantly a tea brand, a category which is relatively new and unique to India. Second the brand is targeted at 20 something youth as well as kids in the age group 5-12 through different skus and forms of product. For youth it is available at the price point of Rs 25 in 400ml PET bottle emphasizing its communication as refreshing on the go drink for today's youth hard pressed for leisure time and for kids it is available in powdered form in tetra packs with the name Remix.The idea seems to be to avoid placing the bet entirely on the cluttered youth beverage segment and have presence in kids segments also as in India there is no non-malted drink (malted ones are Horlicks, Complan etc) catering exclusively to kids. Third and the most salient fact about this brand is its marketing communication reflected in its television commercial for Nestea Remix which has animated characters, more precisely kangaroos and the communication of it being a fun and refreshing drink for kids is driven home. In India the use of animation in ad films is still very much restricted to a few brands like 7up, Mortein etc. Through the use of animation the idea is to create a novelty factor and enhance brand recall, moreover this advertising strategy of using animated characters in TVCs is adopted across the markets where nestea as a brand is a name to reckon with like UK, Germany, Italy etc.

Nestea India TVC -