Have you ever noticed how people refer to their phones? Some will refer to it as my phone, others will call it a cell phone or cell phone, and still others will call it a mobile phone. The difference between cellular and mobile phone appears to be largely geographical, with cellular or cell phone being the preferred name for the cell phone in the states, while in Britain you will only hear them called mobile phones or just a direct phone.
Now there are a couple of exceptions to this very broad rule of thumb, the first being the Apple iPhone and the second being the BlackBerry. Almost all iPhone owners will refer to it as the iPhone, with nothing before or after, while the second device is the famous BlackBerry, which I might add, existed long before the iPhone was released.
So why is it that with all the different mobile phone manufacturers, with all their different models and variations around the world, it seems that only two of them are mentioned by their trade name? Well a good place to start would be with white rum, now what does white rum have to do with phones? Simply brand for the marketing machine! In general, when someone orders white rum in a cafe, bar or restaurant, 9 times out of 10 they will ask for Bacardi instead of white rum, even though Bacardi is just a brand name and not the drink itself.
Now, this is where RIM (the owner of the BlackBerry family of trademarks) has managed to globally market its BlackBerry brand so well that people refer to their phones as BlackBerry, rather than a cell or mobile phone. Apple managed to do the same with the iPhone overnight and it seems to be on its way to doing the same with the new iPad, and people refer to it as an iPad, rather than a notepad computer.
The effect of this clever branding has far-reaching effects on how people get their products or the spread of products on the Internet. New iPhone owners, looking to protect their purchase, may look for iPhone insurance instead of mobile phone insurance, while a BlackBerry owner tends to look for BlackBerry phone insurance. Statistics are slowly showing a similar trend for iPad owners, who instead of looking for laptop insurance, are looking for iPad insurance to protect their latest device from US giant Apple.
This clever brand marketing works fantastically well for corporations of the above mentioned products and many companies have spent millions on global marketing trying to clone the success of one or more of their own products, as a financial reward for a global population requesting a product. . by brand is huge.
Unfortunately for many of these companies their efforts were in vain, costing them millions in failed ad campaigns. But luckily for the general population, this global branding of products doesn’t happen too often, as it would be a very strange world we live in today otherwise.