BlackBerry is not giving up. At Tuesday's kick-off to its annual developers conference, Canada's embattled mobile brand unveiled the BlackBerry Q5, a lower-priced, more youthful smartphone to broaden its appeal to the mobile market. 

The new device, which will be available in select markets in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America starting in July, actually brings back old technology with its QWERTY keyboard, a feature that may very well attract users who are averse to touchscreens as well as heavy texters. 

"The BlackBerry Q5 gives you the best of everything with its cutting-edge BlackBerry 10 functionality and a physical QWERTY keyboard. It is for youthful fans that are passionate, confident and bold, and it makes it easy for them to have fun, create, share and stay connected," according to a press release.

The brand is hoping to capture young, emerging markets in order to shore up losses from Apple's iPhone and Android devices.Continue reading...

In today’s culture, touchscreens abound. But for those unwilling to part with their classic keyboards, BlackBerry is here to help. 

When BlackBerry introduced its new Z10 earlier this year, longtime BlackBerry users were likely put-off by the appearance of a touchscreen on the device rather than the keyboard the company has traditionally had on its mobile devices. It appeared that BlackBerry was keeping up with the iPhone and Android Joneses.

Now, though, BlackBerry is introducting its Q10, which has got an old-school keyboard for the large majority of its old-school clientele that stuck with the company even when it appeared to be crumbling and everybody else was waving iPhones and Android devices in their faces. According to Wired, the Q10 will hit store shelves at the end of May for about $200 to $250 from AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. It will appear in the UK at the end of April and in Canada on May 1.Continue reading...

Subway named top QSR brand in new study. 

Google tests same-day delivery business.

Amazon plans to acquire Goodreads book site.

AOL teams up with coach Phil Jackson to punk Twitter.

Apple faces heightened oversight in China.

Audi aims at Mercedes-Benz CLA with new A3 sedan.

Deutsche Telekom runs into opposition over proposed merger of T-Mobile with MetroPCS.

eBay says it is "now playing offense."

FX pitches new FXX channel at Millennials.Continue reading...

BlackBerry's new global creative director for the revamped company is featured in the first video for her part of the "Keep Moving Projects" cultural influencer project. The Grammy Award-winning musician is asking fans to use the video-editing feature on the new BlackBerry Z10 to contribute to local crowdsourced videos showcasing her current global tour.

Watch BlackBerry's video pitch to Keys fans, along with the first two episodes of author Neil Gaiman's BlackBerry project, below:Continue reading...

Since the rise of the iPhone and Samsung’s cooler-than-thou pursuit of Apple’s marketshare, BlackBerry has been the butt of plenty of jokes. Once the industry leader, BlackBerry suddenly had users who weren’t excited about showing off their mobile to their pals.

Lately though, things are looking up for BlackBerry Nation. A celebrity endorsement, the change in the company’s name from Research in Motion to BlackBerry and the unveiling of the BlackBerry 10 version of the phone last month has many of those who own BlackBerrys looking to upgrade.

The latest YouGov BrandIndex report finds 43 percent of BlackBerry owners surveyed planning to purchase a new phone in the next six months, up from 18 percent last year, and plan to stick with the brand. “This is the most popular the company and its products have been in the US since September 2011,” Agence France Presse notes.

BlackBerry execs can crow about such loyalty metrics with excitement a little, but only briefly. “A year ago, it looked like their customers were going to flee, but now [loyalty] has more than doubled,” Ted Marzilli, SVP and managing director of BrandIndex, tells Marketing Daily. “But what this [data] doesn’t say is if BlackBerry is attracting people from other brands.” The big question, Marzilli points out, is if this number can sustain itself or if it’s just a brief uptick.

Apple is still kicking BlackBerry’s butt with 85 percent of its smartphone buyers looking to upgrade within the brand in the next six months, YouGov notes. Slightly more than half of Samsung smartphone owners plan the same move.

Another metric that YouGov measures is brand perception and marketing buzz, asking survey participants if they’ve heard anything about the brand in the previous two weeks. Through its own scoring system, YouGov has had BlackBerry at near zero since December, but it has now gone up to seven. Samsung is at 16 and Apple is only one point higher. The latter has actually been falling on the list since its high of 38 in October when the iPhone 5 hit store shelves.

So, BlackBerry is pulling itself back up and getting back into the fight, right? It’s preparing to play the part of Rocky and take on the seemingly unstoppable machine of Ivan Drago (ad played by the iPhone). Well, it’s got a lot of work to do.Continue reading...

BlackBerry chief marketing officer Frank Boulben taped an intro, above, to the mobile brand's first Super Bowl spot (and U.S. TV campaign), which promoted the new BlackBerry 10 during Sunday night's game. Below, more on the rebranded RIM's strategy in a behind-the-scenes video released Sunday:Continue reading...

BlackBerry CMO Frank Boulben explains why Research in Motion is no more and the company is rebranding in a video taped during Wednesday's BlackBerry 10 launch in New York.

Also at the event, as you can watch below, Grammy Award winning singer Alicia Keys explained in an on-stage chat with CEO Thorsten Heins why a self-described "iPhone junky" is taking on the global creative director title at the company.Continue reading...

Any doubt that the BlackBerry 10 is central to the survival of Research In Motion was likely erased on Wednesday as the company not only unveiled its new operating system and phones, but changed its corporate name to "BlackBerry," too. "We have a fantastic brand, BlackBerry, and we are known as such all over the world, except in North America," CMO Frank Boulben commented in a video interview at the launch. "We wanted to take full advantage of that global, iconic brand."

"We have redefined ourselves inside and out," said CEO Thorsten Heins, speaking from New York to launch events held across the globe, including one held at the world's tallest building, Dubai's Burj Khalifa, in its $650-a-night Armani Hotel. "RIM becomes BlackBerry. It is one brand, it is one promise." He declined to specify the company's marketing spend for the corporate rebrand and a global launch of BlackBerry 10 that includes Sunday's Super Bowl ad buy, but characterized it as in the "hundreds of million dollars."

That was partially evident at the New York launch with the introduction of Grammy Award winning singer Alicia Keys as the company's "global creative director." It's a trend that follows Lady Gaga's arrangement with Polaroid, will.i.am with Intel, Victoria Beckham with Range Rover, and Keys' husband Swizz Beatz with Reebok — and no doubt annoys creative directors.Continue reading...