During the January launch event of BlackBerry 10, the CEO Thorsten Heins announced that they were appointing singer extraordinaire Alicia Keys as the global creative director for BlackBerry. While its a trend to give titles to celebrities who are attached with different companies, BlackBerry CMO Frank Boulben says that Alicia doesn’t merely have a title, rather she’s been involved in quite a few marketing meetings at BlackBerry. At one such meeting, she also gave her own PowerPoint presentation.
Speaking at the Ad Age Digital Conference earlier today, Frank Boulben said that the company decided to bring Alicia on board only after she had shown interest in the company. Her association with the ailing company can definitely be seen as its struggle to remain relevant with the young and hip, most of which presume that BlackBerry is only a good fit for businesses. BlackBerry has tried to capitalize its association with Alicia in whatever way it can, we even saw the company offer tickets to her concert to the first Z10 customers in the U.S, a country where BB’s market share has nose dived in recent years.