The CEO of the struggling Canadian handset maker is upset with the carrier for its latest efforts.
Although aggressive traditional and mobile marketing is nothing new for T-Mobile, its latest strategy has caused a great deal of tension between it and BlackBerry.
The cellular service provider sent all of its BlackBerry using customers an email encouraging a switch to iPhone 5S.
This mobile marketing campaign didn’t take long to reach BlackBerry, where the news was far from welcome. Even its CEO, John Chen, was displeased, causing him to send a personal response to the promotion. He stated that “I can only guess that T-Mobile thought its ‘great offer for BlackBerry customers’ would be well received. T-Mobile could not have been more wrong”, in a post that he uploaded onto his blog.
Chen wasn’t the only one who was put off by T-Mobile’s mobile marketing strategy.
Despite the fact that the number of BlackBerry customers have been rapidly shrinking, to the point that they are barely a fraction of what they formerly were when they lead the market, its core loyal customer group is a very vocal one.
In response to the outcry, the Chief Marketing Officer at T-Mobile, Mike Sievert, expressed that “The passion we’ve seen from the BlackBerry Loyal over the past couple days has been amazing. I want you to know we’ve heard you.”
Chen added in his blog that he assured the disappointed and frustrated customers that they weren’t the only ones who were feeling outraged by T-Mobile’s strategy. He also pointed out that he was confused by the fact that T-Mobile didn’t even bother to speak with BlackBerry before going ahead and launching a promotion that was “clearly inappropriate and ill-conceived.”
T-Mobile has since attempted to make amends for its decision, offering a $200 credit for any customer who would trace in a working BlackBerry device, which will be bumped up to $250 if that credit is to be used against the purchase of a new BlackBerry Q10 or Z10 device. Clearly, this has greatly changed the tone of this mobile marketing promotion when it comes to that particular brand of mobile devices.
The largest smartphone manufacturer in the world won’t be spending as much marketing over that channel.
It has recently been revealed that Samsung Electronics, the biggest smartphone maker on the globe, has decided that it won’t be spending as much money on mobile marketing throughout 2014.
This decision has come as a surprise to some as mobile devices are a primary focus of the company.
The reason that was given for cutting back on the mobile marketing budget at Samsung, this year, is that the company plans to reduce that spending in a way that directly reflects its revenues. This, following a massive amount of spending during the fourth quarter during its tremendous promotional campaigns throughout the hot holiday shopping season.
That said, this doesn’t meant that Samsung will be ceasing its mobile marketing, only cutting is budget.
There are other advertising and promotional opportunities that are specifically being leveraged at the moment and that are cutting into the overall budget of the company. For that reason, some changes needed to be made this year to carry them through based on the revenues that are expected throughout that time.
For instance, according to Kim Hyunjoon, the senior vice president at Samsung, the company plans to “actively leverage global sports events such as the Sochi (Winter) Olympics” as well as their channels through retail. However, at the same time, they are working to “try to raise the efficiency of our marketing spend and lower our overall mobile marketing budget to revenue this year compared with last year.”
Kim Hyunjoon made this announcement to analysts as Samsung was releasing its earnings figures. Last year, the company had run a number of exceptionally large campaigns, particularly in the last part of the year. This came as a part of a number of different strategies and often coincided with the launches of a series of new types of mobile devices and gadgets that the company has to offer.
The company does intend to continue with a mobile marketing strategy this year and will maintain its reflection of the earnings it plans to bring in through 2014.
