EDMONTON, AB, Feb. 1, 2013/ Troy Media/ – The great thing about technology is that there’s never a shortage of new and exciting things, and sometimes not-so-new and not-so-exciting things, to test, to talk and write about.
Of course, the challenge we all have is keeping up – to be able to wade through the flurry of emails, announcements, press releases and phone calls and faxes. Yes faxes!
But as I scanned through the hundred or more of this morning’s emails, the one with the subject line “BlackBerry Super Bowl Commercial Still Image” caught my attention.
Of course, the big news this week was the release of the long-awaited and much-anticipated BlackBerry 10, along with the rebranding of Canada’s once-darling Research in Motion.
But back to the email from Research in Motion’s, now BlackBerry’s, corporate communications manager. It read:
Hi – (notice the non-personal touch)
As you may know, coming out of the launch of BlackBerry 10 this week, BlackBerry will be featured in Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday for the first time ever. This unique execution will be part of a broad marketing campaign about the totally re-designed, re-engineered and re-invented BlackBerry. As part of this activity, we are sharing a still image of the Super Bowl commercial with our social channels – including 30 millions fans on Facebook and Twitter – to draw them into a conversation about BlackBerry 10 during this highly social event. We’d like to provide you with this still in case you’re interested in sharing it with your readers, and we encourage you to watch our full commercial on Sunday.
I looked at the still image and I was baffled. I thought to myself, “what?” I know it’s from the commercial, but how can I share this with my readers? I don’t get it. There’s no oomph, there’s no wow, and I thought this wouldn’t pique anyone’s interest. I even responded back to the sender with similar comments.
I jumped over to Facebook and Twitter and found that others had offered similar reactions. I added my comments to the social media cause and returned to my daily perusing and purging of today’s Inbox.
But here’s the thing.
I couldn’t get that picture out of my mind. It wasn’t my curiosity or interest about what it meant, but rather why the company, which was likely spending $4 million or more on a 30 second ad in Super Bowl XLVII this coming Sunday, would send out what appeared to be a dull, boring nondescript photograph.
It bugged me so, that I decided to write about it.
Congratulations BlackBerry, you succeeded in getting me to share your pitch and your image with my readers, maybe not exactly in a way you might have thought, but, nonetheless, mission accomplished!
Super Bowl XLVII kicks off Sunday, February 3rd at 6:30PM E.T., live from New Orleans.
Greg Gazin is a Tech Columnist, Small Business and Technology Speaker and Senior Editor at Troy Media. He can be reached at Gadgetguy.CA on Twitter @gadgetgreg or you can find him on Empire Avenue at(e)GADGET1.
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