new balckberry storm - storming its own brand equity into bits

i don't own a blackberry, but i thought this review at the new york times has an excellent insight on brand equity.

No Keyboard? And You Call This a BlackBerry?
by: David Pogue
The New York Times

Research in Motion (R.I.M.), the company that brought us the BlackBerry, has been on a roll lately. For a couple of years now, it’s delivered a series of gorgeous, functional, supremely reliable smartphones that, to this day, outsell even the much-adored iPhone.

Here’s a great example of the intelligence that drives R.I.M.: The phones all have simple, memorable, logical names instead of incomprehensible model numbers. There’s the BlackBerry Pearl (with a translucent trackball). The BlackBerry Flip (with a folding design). The BlackBerry Bold (with a stunning design and faux-leather back).

Well, there’s a new one, just out ($200 after rebate, with two-year Verizon contract), officially called the BlackBerry Storm.

But I’ve got a better name for it: the BlackBerry Dud.

The first sign of trouble was the concept: a touch-screen BlackBerry. That’s right — in its zeal to cash in on some of that iPhone touch-screen mania, R.I.M. has created a BlackBerry without a physical keyboard.

Hello? Isn’t the thumb keyboard the defining feature of a BlackBerry? A BlackBerry without a keyboard is like an iPod without a scroll wheel. A Prius with terrible mileage. Cracker Jack without a prize inside.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/technology/personaltech/27pogue.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1227848400&en=5a50becfbe5bac73&ei=5087%0A

the question the author asked - "what? a blackberry without a keyboard?" is excellent in terms of the most fundamental and strategic question on brand equity. the last paragraph says it all - "isn't the thumb keyboard the defining feature of the blackberry". yes, the thumb keyboard is the very core of what the blackberry is all about.



the blackberry storm, with it's touch screen is obviously an attempt to match and answer apple's iphone. since the launch of the iphone, the market has been looking for the iphone killer.


the intent is fine. but what is not right and in fact most likely will cause an implosion to blackberry is that they are attempting to kill the successful iphone by removing the brand's strategic core of the thumb keyboard by being a copy cat to iphone's touch screen. the thumb keyboard and the touch screen are two extremely different consumer experience of the products. they are worlds apart.


the history of marketing has been brutal to copycat brands. being unique is one of marketing's most revered commandments. it is one of the top holy grail of marketing while being a copycat is poison, a sure path to failure.


that reminds me of burger king when it first launched in the philippines. burger king in the philippines essentially had the same sort of offerings as in the US, one of which was the bottomless refill of sodas (coca cola products). it was a first in the philippines for any fast food restaurant and was a hit among consumers.


a top official from burger king headquarters in the US visited manila to look at the operations here. one of the big discussions with the marketing team of burger manila was the bottomless refill of sodas. the BK official had asked that the offering be stopped, obviously to improve margins. the local marketing people objected arguing that it being a first in the country, it was a top draw among consumers. BK was head to head with the leaders jollibee and mcdonald's and any advantage it can have was one of the things the local marketing team was defending.


the BK official stood pat on the direction and i agree with it. he said BK is all about its charbroiled hamburgers, not sodas. it is their key brand equity.


cellphones are very much the physical design as its features and software. cellphone brands have their own unique physical designs that not only do we remember them, we buy them for that reason. that is true with Motorola's slim flip phones which became an immediate huge hit as during the time of it's launch most cellphones were thick. and the most recent success of course is the iphone with its touch screen.


the blackberry was weathered all these new physical design innovations from their competitors. the blackberry continued to have very good market share and a large and even growing number of loyal users. and all that because blackberry's thumb keyboard was able to fight off these competitive design onslaught.


until now, when they removed the thumb keyboard in the blackberry storm.


it would be interesting to see if consumers agree and confirm this marketing law of "though shall not remove thy brand equity".

jollibee - start of the return of the happy face on jollibee?

jollibee released a full page, full color print ad today at the PDI (Philippine Daily Inquirer) for the launch of their Jollibee Hug & Share Doll promo and i was pleasantly surprised and happy!

i saw a happy face on jollibee!

(read about "who put a sad face on jollibee" here in WAWAM! : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/jollibee)

new Jollibee Hug & Share Doll with a happy face

we wrote in WAWAM! that jollibee's face in their mascots looked sad. the face of the mascot is not an exact copy of the face of jollibee in their flat logo and the jollibee statue (is that what you call that?). what made the face of the jollibee mascot sad were two things - first, the eyes did not have sparkles on them and were just a flat black, looking "blind" with no white spaces around the eyes. and the second, the smile on the jollibee mascot was not full, it wasn't wide enough and did not show the red tongue.

although this is just a doll premium item and not a mascot, it is still a great step forward towards doing the right thing. the Jollibee Hug & Share Doll is very close to the flat logo, almost an exact copy.

it is our opinion that it is a mortal sin to have two versions of the face of jollibee since it is also the company logo. and these inconsistencies we feel go much more beyond shape and graphics but affects the brand personality of jollibee as well.

here is some interesting trivia. this was my answer to one of the questions on the comments section of the jollibee discussion in this blog:

apparently a top jollibee executive has noticed that there was something wrong with the face of the mascot but he could not indentify what was wrong with it. this was discussed in one of the executive committee meetings some months ago. since no answer was found to the gut feel of the top executive, the topic was dropped.

for some reason, the contents of the posts in WAWAM! was brought to the attention of the top executive. and it was only then did he know the specific reasons behind his gut feel that something was wrong with the face of the jollibee mascot. we were also told that at the time the topic was posted in this blog, the jollibee marketing team were reading this blog.

i am almost certain that when the jollibee brand management team presented the compre artwork of this Jollibee Hug & Share Doll, they made a point of it being an exect copy of the flat logo and now, this jollibee has a happy face.

close up of Jollibee Mascot with a sad face

the flat logo of jollibee, a happy face

the surprising change in jollibee's new sad face! part 2

was wondering how come the change in graphic design that resulted to a change in personality in jollibee to sad and listless was very surprising. the jollibee mascot must have looked like that for a long time already, why did it become noticeable now?

and this is the reason - consumers have not been used to seeing the jollibee mascot in so many of their merchandising materials before. in fact we hardly see the jollibee mascot, except if you attend some birthday party held in jollibee. most of the merchandising materials in jollibee restaurants feature their celebrity endorsers, not the mascot. but apparently they have changed that now. now, we see the use of the jollibee mascot more often and in a variety of materials.

and that is what is most bothersome in all of these. the jollibee mascot's face is not an exact copy of the jollibee face flat logo. so what is happening is that jollibee is unintentionally (or intentionally) confusing their target market by putting in two, and in my view very different versions of jollibee. and the one that is most visible to consumers is the sad and listless version, the jollibee mascot. as my 11 year old son said, "That Jollibee (mascot) is not happy in his job."


read all posts on this topic here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/jollibee

who put a sad face on jollibee? part 1

Went to Jollibee Ortigas Avenue and all over the place were large posters featuring the Jollibee image in several materials. The wait for the food was long and that gave me time to survey the posters.

The sad and listless Jollibee



My reaction was – they changed the face of Jollibee, that’s not the same Jollibee I was familiar with! That surprised me as I know that together with a total make-over of their logos and store design, they also did a major graphics design change of Jollibee and his face some years ago. I thought changing it again now is too soon.

I remember they did the graphics change at the same time Aga Muhlach became the Jollibee endorser and I thought Jollibee then looked like Aga, a significant improvement from the previous Jollibee.

At first, I could not pin down the changes but I was very sure some changes were made. This Jollibee face looked sad and listless to me. The lips had a smile on it but it didn’t help. I was missing the spark on Jollibee’s face, made it look insincere, not at all friendly and certainly not jolly. At times I felt this Jollibee was blind.

Jollibee had the saddest face in this family picture of Aga Muhlach

The sad and listless Jollibee was made even more obvious in this large banner that had Jollibee together with Aga Muhlach and his family. Aga and everyone in the family were happy – all had these huge smiles, almost laughing faces and even the girl who didn’t smile as much as the others had eyes that were smiling and very happy.

Then it occurred to me what was wrong!

This is the Jollibee we all know - happy and engaging!

This is the Jollibee I know - an engaging, sparkly happy Jollibee. And I realize the sad and listless Jollibee face that was all over the restaurant was that of the Jollibee mascot!

It looks like the mascot’s face graphics is not an exact copy of the flat graphics of the Jollibee face that is in their logo and in all signages. And unfortunately, it appears Jollibee has embarked on a merchandising campaign that uses the Jollibee mascot very extensively.

The happy Jollibee - sparkles in the eyes and big happy smile!

The sad and listless Jollibee, looking like a dry ornament

There are two very major differences between the two: (a) the white “sparkles” in the eyes of the Jollibee logo are not on the mascot’s face and (b) the smile on the Jollibee logo is wider and bigger almost laughing, showing a red tongue while the mascot’s smile had its lips closed. There is a third difference, the shape of the chef’s hat but that compared to the smile and the sparkle in the eyes is a minor difference.

The absence of the white sparkles on the mascot’s eyes made the face look listless and the demure smile both contributed to making the mascot’s face look sad and much less engaging than that of the face logo.

The Jollibee face is a very important brand property of Jollibee. In fact, given the target market of Jollibee, it makes the face slightly more important than the text graphics of the brand name. One of the most revered principles of logo design and application is consistency. Marketing companies obsess with perfection when it comes to the application of logos across different media. They obsess with it because it is literally their face to their target market. And in the case of Jollibee, it is the personification of the brand and an expression of the brand values it upholds.

Companies like Walt Disney whose products rely heavily on visuals like graphics, animation and mascots (Disneyland) are obsessed with consistency and perfection of looks and graphics. Their obsession on consistency is very much marketing legend and if you ask Disney, they will tell you it is a key success element in their business and one that they will not compromise on. It is not only their trademark, their graphics are actually their business.

In the Disney picture, the face of Mickey Mouse is duplicated to the exact feature from the flat graphics to the mascot - from the eyes to the mouth, including the smile that showed the red lips, which was probably used as inspiration in designing the Jollibee face. To make sure the face is an exact copy, Disney even used a hard material on the face of the mascot to so that the whole face and the very important components of the shape of the ears and nose do not get distorted and stay in shape even when the mascot moves.

The differences are more obvious in the pictures below, where the Jollibee statue in the middle is an exact copy of the Jollibee flat graphics, the picture below it. The same happy and engaging character comes out, but not with the Jollibee mascot on the first picture. The Jollibee statue in the middle picture looks happier and friendlier. My 11 year old son describes the Jollibee mascot on the first picture as “Someone who is not happy in his job.”.

The sad and listless Jollibee mascot

The happy and engaging Jollibee statue, exact copy of the logo

The happy Jollibee logo we all love


For me, Jollibee is much better than Ronald McDonald. I won’t even be surprised if McDonald’s found out many Filipino children find Ronald McDonald as scary. I think Jollibee is definitely an asset and an advantage versus Ronald McDonald. It’s a shame that Jollibee has been careless, incompetent even in applying the Jollibee image to their mascot.

First and foremost, I think it is unforgivable that the design graphics of the Jollibee face is not faithfully duplicated on the mascot. There should not have been any compromise on this one, it is after all a logo. They should have not launched the Jollibee mascot unless it was a perfect duplication of the logo. If it was a question of material, then they should have not stopped looking for the material that guaranteed an exact duplication.

The other part is – why the insistence in using the Jollibee mascot in merchandising materials that is pure graphics and did not include real people in the layout? The use of the Jollibee mascot in the Aga Muhlach and family poster is understandable, to some degree necessary even, but I see no value in using the mascot in the Wi-Fi poster that was pure graphics. Rendering Jollibee in graphics in these types of posters would have resulted to a much better poster as the graphics artist has full control on the rendering of Jollibee.

The reason the Jollibee mascot is used in materials that include real people in the poster is that a graphics rendition of Jollibee would have been too obvious and can look weird in that poster. It might look too staged and fake. People will have a point of comparison – a flat, one dimensional Jollibee graphics versus people who are real and obviously in 3D.

The argument for the use of the mascot in posters that don’t include real people in the layout is the desire to make the Jollibee character more “real”. The mascot is 3D and can look better or more realistic. But that objective is not at all delivered in the posters. The photography in the posters is so bad that the Jollibee mascot actually looks flat, not 3D or a bad graphics rendition of the Jollibee logo. (The flat Jollibee mascot is the result of an over-exposed photo shooting of the mascot.)

I mentioned the difference in the shape of the chef hat in the flat logo and mascot is not as critical in as far as projecting an attitude and character of Jollibee, but it is nevertheless a grave violation in terms of consistency in the application of logos across media. The Jollibee face is not just a character like the other mascots they have, first it is Jollibee himself, the name of the restaurant and secondly, it is also a logo. And being a logo, you want to make sure it is faithfully applied across all materials.

That makes me wonder – is Jollibee management aware the Jollibee mascot is not an exact copy of Jollibee flat graphics? Another question – who put the sad face on Jollibee? Final question – who wants a sad Jollibee?