MARKETING TO BLACKBERRY ADDICTS
BlackBerry users are addicted to mobile communications, even if they don’t realise it yet.
You’ve all heard the banging-of-the-mobile-drum over the last few months by digital evangalists everywhere (especially in this office): “Mobile is the fututure! Mobile will cure all your communication illnesses!”. But few have focused on what this means in targeting our nation’s most influential individuals.
High net-worth BlackBerry users are in positions of influence, purchasing and general corporate power-suit power. Federal and State MPs all use BlackBerry’s to keep up to date with the latest news wire. CEOs, and Upper Management use them to delegate (FW:) and Advertising Executives use BlackBerries to forward the latest viral ad to their team that they wish they’d thought of first.
The insight is that a large portion of all these people are addicted to their devices in terms of seeking constant contact, and not necessarily in a productive manner that is traditionally associated with email. Most customers dream of this This addicted state can leave users in a vulnerable state, and ideal for your next AB targeted marketing piece.
Consider this recent article in Forbes.com:
Its nickname, CrackBerry, says it all. There is no recreational use of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. It is a compulsive addiction, or you’re not a user. Academic studies back up the notion. One, by David Vance, assistant professor of accounting at Rutgers-Camden university, and Nada Kakabadse, professor of management and business research at the U.K.’s University of Northampton, found that a third of BlackBerry users show signs of addiction “similar to alcoholics.” Many companies would give a king’s ransom for such customer dependency.
..like addicts, users of these devices are not using the time savings and productivity gains to shorten their work hours. Instead, they work longer. Glenn Wilson, a psychologist at King’s College London, found that two-thirds of users check work e-mails out of office hours and on holidays. Getting more done, thanks to the speed of communication, doesn’t necessarily enhance the quality of life.
Wilson found that a compulsion to reply to each new message led to constant changes of direction, which inevitably tired and slowed down the brain. The distractions of constant e-mails, text and phone messages are a greater threat to IQ and concentration, he says, than taking cannabis.
As any addiction is selfish at its heart; work, for BlackBerry users, can take full precedence over personal needs. As such, consider the state-of-mind of these users: they constantly change their direction, and are unpredictable. In light of this, marketing should not rely soley on pushing messages to users, but be reactive to requests and always be available. The constant change in direction and distraction of users will also require a higher frequency in messaging.
At least they are selfish. Consider the Swedish designer furniture they’ll be oogling at. The 5-star luxury cruises they could be researching and dreaming about. Or the new 7-Series they’ll be upgrading to if the deal they’ve been checking their email for every minute goes through.
The opportunities are endless. And the good thing is that uptake of BlackBerries and other convergent devices like Apple’s iPhone is exploding. Time to ride the trend-wave to marketing award glory.
Finally, just remember to be responsible.. Dr Jerald Block, writing in The American Journal of Psychiatry, has suggested that people who send excessive texts and e-mails many have a mental illness. There are four symptoms, Block says: suffering from feelings of withdrawal when a computer cannot be accessed; an increased need for better equipment; the need for more time to use it; and experiencing the negative repercussions of their addiction.
