BlackBerry has had a rough year. BlackBerry is so badly off it can’t even sell itself for a fraction of its actual worth. But BlackBerry has its dignity, dammit, and it won’t tie itself to a sinking ship like Justin Bieber.
Apparently, in the spirit of supporting flailing Canadian brands, Bieber reached out to BlackBerry and offered to be their spokesman for $200,000 and 20 phones. We question the cash just because, c’mon, BlackBerry hasn’t had $200,000 lying around since 2008 or so, but either way, the Biebs got rejected. Harshly.
[Senior Development Manager Vincent] Washington told Bloomberg Businessweek: “He said, ‘Give me $200,000 and 20 devices, and I’m your brand ambassador,’ basically. And we pitched that to marketing: Here’s a Canadian kid, he grew up here, all the teeny-boppers will love that. They basically threw us out of the room. They said, ‘This kid is a fad. He’s not going to last.’ I said at the meeting: ‘This kid might outlive RIM.” Everyone laughed.”
To be fair, considering the Bieb’s current shenanigans, and how quickly Alicia Keys’ “creative directorship” fell off the map, you can’t blame the BlackBerry marketing department for sticking with what it knew. And it was also unlikely even the biggest music star in the world could fix the structural and technological problems that BlackBerry faced over the last few years.
Still, we’re not sure who got the better end of the deal here. Did BlackBerry dodge a bullet after the inevitable pop star meltdown, or did Bieber manage to avoid being stuck with an outdated brick? You make the call!
(Image courtesy of cukuskumir on Flickr)
