According to a study cited in BrandWeek.com the BlackBerry is on a bit of a slide as far as brand loyalty goes, moving from the No. 6 spot down to 17. The BlackBerry didn’t fall as far as the Treo, however, as it fell from 4 down to 23.
“There are more choices”, said Allyn Hall director of consumer markets at In-Stat, Scottsdale, Ariz. “Blackberry had a monopoly for a while; they were the first to make receiving e-mail using a mobile device practical. There are a ton of alternatives now and more in the chute.”
I am going to go out on a limb and assume that this study was conducted before the release of the BlackBerry Pearl and the BlackBerry 8703e. My theory is a lot of BlackBerry users, especially those on Verizon and Sprint, started to explore other possibilities, not so much because they didn’t want a BlackBerry any longer, but, because they had their BlackBerry 7250 devices for a few years, wanted something new, and were very limited on new BlackBerrys that they could move to.
I would be willing to bet that if the BlackBerry 8703e or even the BlackBerry Pearl were available back when this study was conducted, you would see a much lower ranking for the BlackBerry than what you do now.
I agree with you Robb. Many CDMA BlackBerry users may have switched to another device simply becasue it took so long for 8703e to come out on Sprint and Verizon and for a BlackBerry with a camera to come out period.
RIM shouldn’t feel so bad…Apple was only number 22…and I would take Apple’s brand loyalty any day.
Bottom line: these studies are presented as authoritative, but are usually far from that. They may be instructive, but to try to measure something as nebulous as “brand loyalty” across such a wide range of consumer products is bound to be flawed and imprecise.
one word for you guys “AndroidArkable”. Think about it.