If you think iPhone is the king of all the smartphones everywhere in the world then think again. In South America, especially to Venezuela, two revolutions are happening: a political one, moving the country towards communism; and a technological one, The Blackberry Revolution.

The high cost of Blackberry, between 395 USD and 1500USD, considerably high for most of Venezuelans, doesn’t seem be an obstacle for the explosive expansion of the smart device in the Latin American country.

According to Telefonica, the Spanish telecom company, 70% of the Blackberries that they sold last year were sold in Venezuela. Furthermore, the levels of sales of Blackberries in Venezuela are twice as high as those in Brazil and Mexico combined. This is very impressive because the population of Venezuela is 27 million people whilst the combined population of Brazil and Mexico is almost 300 million people.

The Blackberry Messenger is what has made the device increasingly popular in the South American country, where people love to be connected with ‘lots of friends’ all the time but need to do it in safe way because of the increasing insecurity. The fact that Blackberry users can exchange PINs (personal identification numbers), text one another on a secure platform and better still without paying additional charges for each text message they send, has led to the fast adoption of the device.

In addition, the Blackberry Messenger fits better with the way Venezuelans communicate. It allows them to hold several informal conversations at the same time and show their emotions and feelings across through the use messenger emoticons.

The surge for Blackberries started about two years ago when the device was made accessible to the Venezuelan mass market, which is mostly dominated by prepaid consumers. Thus, Venezuelans, who like to keep up-to-date with last innovative trends, have become one the fastest consumer segment in adopting smartphones. According to RIM, the maker of Blackberry, per-capita adoption of smartphones in Venezuela exceeds that of Europe.

Another reason for the success of Blackberry in Venezuela is its high level of brand awareness and esteem. Brands play a big role in purchase decsions. Despite low income levels, Venezuelans always try to buy the best and most reliable brand for two reasons mainly; (1) fashion and status; and (2) inflation, combined with shortage of goods, leads to people not to save money but to buy things today because a week later they could sell them at higher price if they want to.

And what about iPhone? Venezuelans are very aware of the brand and iPods are very popular devices but Blackberry was the first smartphone that was massively accessible to the people.

Now this Blackberry effect is being seeing in other markets of the region. According to RIM, the Blackberry messenger is helping drive sales in Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and Caribbean countries. Blackberry was the top selling smartphone in South America in the last half of 2009.

This story of Blackberry in South America is a great example of marketing strategy. Instead of reducing marketing budget in financial downturn times, RIM and Telefonica have looked for opportunities across geographical regions, looked at consumer behavioural trends and pushed consequently the penetration of their products in the fast growing regions.

Remember if people ask you for your number over there, it is very likely that they mean the PIN of your Blackberry, not your phone number!

• ‘The value of a social network is defined not only by who’s on it, but by who’s excluded’ (Paul Saffo)
• ‘The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate’ (Joseph Priestley)
• ‘A website should be a holistic experience channel’ (Anon)
• ‘If content is king, then conversion is queen’ (John Munsell)
• ‘New marketing is about the relationships, not the medium’ (Ben Grossman)

Borrowed with pride from all over the place.

McDonald’s have frequently been in the firing line of the media and lobby groups with regards to their Happy Meals and today has witnessed a further dramatic twist. Whilst many extreme lobbyists have called for an outright ban on the Happy Meals such a move has largely been regarded as very unlikely; not so it appears in the US county of Santa Clara (which covers most of Silicone Valley). Elected officials have introduced a law that bans the provision of toys with any children’s meals that fall short of national nutritional guidelines, hence eliminating a central component of the Happy Meal.

Whilst the toy element is vetoed, of course the food itself will still be available and given that all other fast food outlets in this area will cease offering similar incentives, it is unlikely therefore to affect the popularity of fast food within the county (where one in four children are obese, which is higher than the US average of one in five). McDonald’s is popular with young families because it provides food that all members of family enjoy at a price that is affordable and in an environment that is family friendly. Sure, the children may be surprised and disappointed not to receive their usual toy but I doubt that this will act as a stimulus for them to grab a carrot stick and jog around the park (although perhaps a few children may burn off a few calories if they jump up and down in anger).

Once again politicians are clutching at policy straws to address the obesity issue and hitting easy win targets to publicly demonstrate their commitment to the health & well being of their voters. If only social and behavioural change was that easy!

We are pleased to announce the arrival of Dan Parkinson as a new Consultant.

Dan has worked both client-side and agency-side in marketing and brand strategy. Past experience has included segmentation & market entry, brand positioning & architecture and culture & communications – across a range of sectors with a number of global brands (and client-side for Streetcar).
 
When pushed, Dan will admit that he likes travel and art, eating out, cooking in and the recommended amount of exercise – though not necessarily in that order (and not all at once). What he likes most of all is finding new things to like and learning about what makes people tick.

About 5 years ago in a brainstorming session an idea was created for a MMS service. A name was even given –  ’Does my bum look big in this?’. The idea behind the service was that a person would try an outfit on in a shop and then either the shop (imagine a flagship store such as Top Shop in Oxford Street) or an individual (using their mobile phone) would MMS a picture of themselves to their mates and a clever application would tell them whether to buy it or not by giving an aggregate score.

I always thought we should launch it but the technology just wasn’t ready.

But as with all good ideas they eventually get launched and someone has now taken the idea and run with it…. wonder if we can claim the rights to the original idea in a Facebook style lawsuit…..Watch this space.