RIM does damage control - strange PR strategy though

RIM's CEO, Thorsten Heins

So only a couple of days after RIM went through perhaps its worst PR disaster ever with the announcement of Q1, 5,000 lay-offs and delay of BB10, Thorsten Heins has come out publicly to try and calm shaken customers and investors.

He did an interview with CBC radio which you can listen to here.

Kudos to RIM on maintaining an open line of communication with the media (always a good strategy during a crisis), but I did find Heins interview a bit strange from a PR perspective.

1) CBC Radio?

I found his choice of CBC Radio to be very odd. CBC radio, while a national station, has limited reach. It's not the first media outlet you'd expect RIM to engage if they are looking to calm people's concerns.

Any major outlet such as the WSJ, CNBC, National Post, Globe&Mail or CNBC would have reached at least 10 times as many stakeholders.

Perhaps though the decision to go with CBC Radio was sort of a beta test for their messaging strategy. Given its limited reach, if reaction to Heins interview was negative it gives them time to re-adjust before engaging a larger outlet.  Radio, while being a great medium, is perishable in that what is said on the radio has less lasting impact than print or television.

The strategy, if this was their strategy, was fairly flawed though given the content of the radio interview was spread throughout print media by noon.

2) A half-baked messaging strategy?

The interview Heins gave was 'OK' at best. The salient message that he communicated was:

• RIM is not in a death spiral
• BB10 will fundamentally redefine the RIM offering. BB10 is not simply an OS upgrade, its an entirely new OS upon which the future of the company hinges
• He is confident in BB10

The problem with his messaging was that it did not create any kind of confidence in the company. It didn't hurt, but it didn't help. The reason being a fairly simply one, his messages relied 100 per cent on the listener having faith that what he was saying would be the case. 

What could have beefed up Heins' messaging strategy? Basically he should have articulated more what BB10 is about. To simply say RIM hinges on BB10 means almost nothing (everyone on the planet Earth knows this).  

Why will BB10 be a success in the market?
What features are going to blow people's socks off?
What are developers saying about BB10?

How much market share do you think you can recapture with BB10 in the future?

Heins didn't address any of these things (not that he was asked about them mind you). 

He could have also emphasized that he acknowledges that RIM has lost trust in the market - among consumers and investors - but that the only way they are going to regain that trust is through execution on BB10. 

Key words like trust, execution, expectations, loyalty, growth, new era, driving towards, commitment, competitive, underdog, extension, regain, excitement, etc. are all words that Heins could have weaved in to his messaging to deliver a more convincing "We aren't dead yet" message.

3) No cake walk

Kudos to CBC radio for not tossing softballs at Heins. The interview really hammered him, asking a number of times why people should believe anything he says now and what does he have to say about the popular belief that RIM is dead.

They even did a 'gotcha' question where they played back something Heins said when he first became CEO, about how he was very optimistic about the future. Heins responded to this by saying that obviously he knows more now than he did when he first became CEO.

WTF? That was a horrible answer. You took a job without knowing the extent of the damage you were cleaning up? I don't believe that for one second. 

What he should have said was the excitement he showed when he first took over is still there, but he was premature in making those statements; however, he believes that upon the release of BB10 people will understand where that excitement was and is coming from. 

Anyway, on the one hand RIM did a decent job of at least getting the message out that they do not believe they are in a death spiral. On the other hand, no one really believes what Heins is saying, so it's medium-term benefit is minimal. 

"This is your pilot speaking, just stay calm,
everything will be alright.":

It's kind of like the pilot telling you to stay calm while the plane is bouncing all over the place due to turbulence. It's great to hear but it doesn't really calm your nerves.

That said, I'm still holding my RIM shares based on my PR thesis that RIM coverage will soon start turning away from 'Doom and Gloom' and will start getting in to 'What's Next?" for RIM.

Some outlets have already begun that transition:

(The Guardian)  What's Next for RIM?

(Forbes) BlackBerry Consumer Perception Shows Signs of Stabilizing Amid Financial Woes

(WSJ) Research In Motion Finds a Buyer … In an Analyst

It will take about a week for the trend to solidify and for folks to forget the past quarter and start speculating on ways RIM could maximize its options moving forward. 

And as I've said in past blog entries... RIM must start talking about what exactly will be in the BB10 experience. 

The question now though is: will the stock get a bounce or will it continue to slide. I'll stick around for a little bit, but if I don't see the PR trend unfold as it should, I'll most likely bail.