Is BlackBerry mimicking Apple? Or is Bono?
While preparing myself for a feature-length period being upended by Bruno, the Austrian arbiter of taste, I was struck by a sight almost as strange as Bruno in khakis.
The screen was adorned with an ad for U2. Well, it appeared to have been paid for by BlackBerry, but I wonder just how much it might do for perhaps Canada's finest brand.
As some erudite commentators have pointed out, the ad bears a remarkable resemblance to an Apple ad featuring Coldplay. And even to an Apple ad featuring, um, U2.
Which might make one wonder just what machinations might have occurred in order for such a faintly familiar work to see digital light.
What is really quite beautiful about the BlackBerry brand is that it was created without the obvious help of advertising.
It's not that BlackBerry has never been advertised. It's simply that people bought into the brand because they loved the feeling of that business-like machine so close to their fingers and pelvis, rather than because they espied an ad that made them laugh, cry, sing or perhaps even lose their victuals.
It's rarely easy to create ads that feature the extremely famous. They tend to have very strong opinions as to how they should be seen. So is it possible that BlackBerry might have ceded some influence to Bono in the configuration of this work?
When U2 signed a deal with RIM, Bono was positively vertiginous in delineating the difference between RIM and Apple. The Toronto Globe and Mail quoted him as saying: "Research In Motion is going to give us what Apple wouldn't--access to their labs and their people so we can do something really spectacular."
While it would be lovely to be touched by the spectacular, this spot doesn't seem pass the spectacle test. Right down to the typeface at the very end, which bears an unnerving resemblance to Apple's.
"BlackBerry loves U2," it says. Might the implication be that Apple didn't? Could it be that it was Bono rather than BlackBerry who influenced the ad to be so similar to Apple's, in some slightly odd nose-thumbing gesture in the direction of Cupertino?
It's already a rather peculiar menage-a-trois, given that Bono was a founder of Elevation Partners, which holds a substantial stake in Palm.
So while pondering these peculiarities, I think back to "Bruno." The movie ends with a rather touching charity ditty, featuring Bruno himself. And Sting. And Snoop-Dogg. And Elton John. And, wait, there's Bono again.
He's everywhere, isn't he?
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
I love the RIM folks (actually worked with them pre-Blackberry) but the phone and brand is tired and oozes 1990s and 40's businessmen. So does U2.
Apple has built an amazing phone that no one seems to really be able to touch (except for maybe Palm - great job Palm) and I'd rather not give the other cheap imitations my money for just copying a clear innovator.
While we're at it., Andriod is way over-hyped. The phones also look like they were designed by DeLorean and the experience is a over-customizeable clusterphuck. There doesn't seem to be any real momentum from the developer community for Android either.
My prediction: Apple will fix the 2 things Blackberry has that it needs to attack the business market: Security, a keyboard. That, along with a whole generation of 20's and 30-somethings moving up the ranks and RIM is toast like Motorola and Nokia. Then Apple will use that leverage to grow marketshare in business PCs.
Google OS will also flop like Linux desktops. Windows 7 rocks and Google is a 1 trick pony that has already flopped in everything other than search, and they're not innovating there either. *** Google? Same search results since 2000?
Google's spreadsheet app is good for making nicely laid out tables, and that's about it. Sharing existing spreadsheets with friends is fine, but actually trying to work on them is awful. The formatting has been dumbed down so much that 90% of usefulness is lost, all the intuitiveness is gone, the ease of selection and everything that makes me able to do multiple things quickly is gone. It's a slow, painful, uncooperative experience with a fraction of the functionality of Excel.
Beyond having them talk about the product or be shown using it, what other ways are there to utilize a band to highlight your brand? You take it all apart and the only thing that seems remotely like it could be mimicking is the style. Given how long it can take to put a commercial together, even that could be a coincidence. You don't trash an idea halfway through production because the other guy did it first. That'd be a waste of money and resources.
Everything else seems like a complete knock off as well. I was really surprised the first time I saw that it said BlackBerry at the end.
Oh yeah, and in my opinion Apple hasn't lost out on anything by having U2 defect to RIM. If that is a move to make the BlackBerry appear hip, it's a pathetic attempt. But, maybe it's geared toward the geriatric rocker crowd.
I did see the Helvetica documentary. It's good, isn't it?
Chris
I didn't exactly pull out a ruler and analyze the typeface at the end of the Apple one to be sure it was Apple's Helvetica. If its the one they use for their logos and the text on the GUI of their website, then yes, that is Helvetica. Apple has their own version, which is why I noted that it is slightly different than classic Helvetica.
Even if it's not (I can't imagine why they would use something else, the typeface is a huge part of their corporate identity, but I'm not calling the shots in their design department, so who knows?), just using a minimalist sans-serif typeface does not constitute copying.
Nope, no Helvetica.
The stylesheet on Apple.com calls in order: Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans Unicode, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif
Of course your browser may override the CSS or without the default fonts, it may use Helvetica instead of another sans-serif, but to be clear Apple isn't calling Helvetica in the code of the page.
As far as the text in graphics, it's Myriad...specifically the product taglines and anything used with the logo are Myriad. Apple went from Garamond (serif) to Myriad (sans-serif) for all prominent titles, logos, etc... Helvetica Neue is used when other body text can't be in one of the preferred body fonts (Lucida, Arial, Verdana, etc...).
The only real intentional use of Helvetica by Apple would be in the UI on the iPod Touch and iPhone.
What I'm getting at here, is that given how hard it is not to use Helvetica, Apple is clearly avoiding its use wherever practicable. In other words, it's an attention to detail to have a different design. It's a strong but subtle branding effort by Apple.
It would be stupid to call Helvetica for use in web copy, since most computers don't have Helvetica installed on them. Microsoft didn't license it. Lucida in several of its forms can be found as defaults on both Mac and PC, as well as Garamond, and with the popularity of Adobe products, you can find Myriad fairly often. Verdana's also cross-platform. I'll concede the point, but don't confuse the lack of use in body copy as a stylistic decision rather than a practical one.
The U2 ad is because Blackberry is sponsoring U2's tour, it's brand association and is to sell tickets to U2 gigs and RIM phones.
There is a rough similarity in the look but the iTunes ad is very graphical and the U2 one shows the animated effects U2 shows at gigs on their massive screens.
Why not blog about how Elevation (Bono) invested serious money in Palm which helped create the Pre yet Bono has RIM sponsoring his band, this whole article is the usual someone copies Apple ********, Apple paid a design firm a fortune to make the video and THEY are the original creators of the ads look not Apple.
Also:
It kinda frustrating me, cnet is so much in love with apple.. its always apple is so great and this was copied from apple and blablabla.. It almost looks like, that apple is paying these editors to put their company in the news..
Get over it cnet, there are more important things then apple
maybe that's why nobody ever brings it up...??
i might decide occasionally to turn my phone to landscape and start using two hands if i wanted to really focus on typing up a long document, but that is simply because the keyboard os so much bigger that way...really an option/benefit blackberry doesnt have
i can even dial without looking fairly easily
If you want to read and respond to emails, do business etc. get a Blackberry. If you like IPhone's touch screen Blackberry Storm is for you..
Having said that I'm still waiting to check out the new Palm I know it's been out for a while in the US...
Kudo's to Google for Chrome, I don't think it will be ready for primetime for a few years, but the fact they are marketing it as an OS for a Netbook, just might mean it will flourish! We'll have to wait and see...
Dying to get my hands on Windows 7 too!
I do a lot of business stuff on my iPhone, I have it checking 4 different email accounts, I use VNC regularly when I am away from the office. There's all sorts of little IT like apps such as subnet calculators which come in handy at times. I wouldn't underestimate the iPhone as a business phone.
- by mazurmedia1 July 13, 2009 12:39 PM PDT
- The "light particles" and effects look like they were done in Motion... which is an Apple product. (Part of Apple's Final Cut Studio production suite.)
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