RIM’s been having a rough couple of weeks, punctuated by the poor Q1 financial results and equally rough Q2 forecast last week, but to make matters worse, the maker of BlackBerry has just lost a senior VP to Samsung. Brian Wallace is an 11-year RIM veteran, and handled the BlackBerry brand in its various incarnations online, including Twitter, Facebook, and online ads. For all of the exploding popularity of iPhone and Android, the BlackBerry brand name still carries significant weight to it, and that’s thanks in no small part to Wallace’s work.
RIM will also be losing Chief Marketing Officer Keith Pardy shortly, which means BlackBerry will either have a clean marketing slate, or without seasoned, experienced personnel, depending on how you look at it. Wallace will be working alongside a recently-appointed Todd Pendleton, who is Samsung Mobile’s new chief marketing officer for the U.S. Samsung’s latest ad strikes more of a chord with me than RIM’s ongoing BBM hero or Love campaigns, but I’m definitely more impressed with RIM’s other engagement via blogs, Twitter, Facebook and forums. What about you guys? Have you had any particularly good online interactions with either company?
[via WSJ]