BlackBerry fanboys are… passionate. Obnoxious could be another word. At a moment’s notice, they assemble and attack anyone who wafts a whiff of negativity against their fallen hero.
T-Mobile’s CEO learned this the hard way… but that was probably T-Mobile’s plan from the start.
Earlier this week, T-Mobile sent out an email to its BlackBerry customers offering them an iPhone 5s for $0 down. It’s a good deal. At least it’s a good deal for those BlackBerry users looking to switch. But in traditional BlackBerry fanboy fashion, the dwindling fanbase attacked T-Mobile and its CEO.
Was going to engage John Chen on Twitter, but turns out he’s not here. I’ll check MySpace. Don’t worry @BlackBerry Something in the works!
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) February 19, 2014
BlackBerry’s CEO even penned a post thanking his troops for “expressing your outrage directly to T-Mobile through tweets, calls and comments in the media and on blog posts.” John Chen went on to call to call T-Mobile’s promotion “inappropriate” and “ill-conceived marketing promotion”.
Chen was wrong. T-Mobile was just feeding the trolls for its own benefit.
T-Mobile is currently engaging in a rebranding. Billed as the uncarrier, T-Mobile is trying its hardest to separate itself from other U.S. carriers with unconventional wireless plans, phone prices, and, yes, marketing schemes. Even if T-Mobile’s marketing department wasn’t fully aware of the rabid BlackBerry crowd, they certain knew that their promotion, called “A great deal for BlackBerry users,” would ruffle some feathers and get kicked around the Internet. It was clearly designed to be snarky.
BlackBerry fanboys have always been predictable. T-Mobile essentially released a promo that would spread like a wildfire among the demographic it was specifically targeting and you can be positive some of the former BB users are dumping their dogs as we speak.
Think T-Mo learned its lesson? Nope. The carrier also just rolled a new plan where it will give $250 to upgrading BlackBerry users. This, folks, is viral marketing at its best.