Did you know most BlackBerry phones will stop working this week?
The once ‘must-have’ gadget was not that long ago being touted by the rich and famous and was the device of the working professional – boasting 20 per cent of the smartphone market at its peak.
But it fell out of fashion, and customers switched to iPhones and Androids.
And now, the software used to support the iconic devices is being switched off this week. BlackBerry has fully crumbled.
But why are we telling you this? Well, BlackBerry was the source of an infamous interview. One we have shown many times during our media training courses.
And we thought this was an opportunity to revisit it and the lessons that can be learnt from it.
So, let’s take you back to 2013. Stephen Bates, the company’s European Managing Director, has been invited on to BBC Breakfast to discuss its latest device – the BlackBerry 10 smartphone – which it hopes will turn around its faltering fortunes.
It was a prime interview slot and presented a brilliant opportunity to make the public aware of the benefits of this new device.
But it went wrong from the start and got steadily worse.
The opening question was predictable and one that should have been anticipated through good media interview preparation.
Business journalist Steph McGovern – who now has her own daytime programme – wanted to know why the launch of the new product had been delayed twice.
Mr Bates, however, did not want to discuss this negative issue and responded with evasive and meaningless corporate speak.
“We’ve been embarking on a complete redesign, re-engineer and reinvention of what is BlackBerry…” he said.
And this became the pattern for the interview, with Ms McGovern trying to find out what had ‘gone wrong’ and Mr Bates ignoring the questions and focusing instead on how excited he was about the new product. Other attempted responses to the question included “I’m really proud to be part of this industry”, “this is a great market – we’ve tried lots of things”, and “this is a phenomenal market”.
This final part of the exchange sums the interview up neatly.
McGovern: You still haven’t told me what went wrong.
Bates: This is a phenomenal market. We are brave, we are out there, we are pushing it. We’ve transitioned and are supporting a business in the consumer world and the business world and what is important is ensuring we deliver a great, unique experience to those 79 million customers out there and all the other BlackBerry users that we think we'll get.
McGovern: Ok Stephen. We might never know what went wrong, but anyway, thanks very much for your time.
This was followed by presenters Charlie Stayt and Susanna Reid joking about the interview, with Mr Stayt asking, “what was it that went wrong?”, and Ms Reid replying, “the boss wants to focus on what is going right.”
So why did this interview go so badly wrong, and why do we continue to discuss it during our media training courses?
Evasive
Well, it is a brilliant example of why spokespeople cannot afford to ignore awkward, uncomfortable questions. Mr Bates needed to address the product delay issue and then use the bridging media training technique to steer the conversation to the positive areas he wanted to get across.
Radio 5 Live Breakfast presenter Nicky Campbell, who carried out an equally damaging interview with Mr Bates the same morning, alluded to this on Twitter.
@dcarvill he should have answered briefly and then grabbed the agenda. the classic ABC approach. Answer -Bridge - Control
— Nicky Campbell (@NickyAACampbell) January 30, 2013
Journalists ask the questions they believe their audience wants to be answered. If they feel those questions are ignored, they will pursue them. The launch delays were well publicised, and many BlackBerry customers would have wanted to know the reasons for them.
Rather than being scared of the question, Mr Bates and his comms team should have anticipated it and planned a response.
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Unnatural
One of the aims of a broadcast media interview should be to create a natural-sounding conversation.
But this can’t happen when spokespeople ignore the questions.
As you watch the interview, you feel that Mr Bates is reading from a press release or a statement as he tries to shoehorn positive messages into the conversation.
So why did Stephen Bates even bother to go on @bbcbreakfast if he wasn't going to answer any of @stephbreakfast questions. #PressRelease
— Media Junior (@mediajunior) January 30, 2013
Did Stephen Bates actually answer a question put by @stephbreakfast @BBCBreakfast he should be a politician #Blackberry #RIM
— Spud (@PontWan) January 30, 2013
This problem was compounded by Mr Bates littering his responses with jargon and corporate-speak. Examples included “delivering a solution”, “unique user experience”, “unique capability” and “transitioning”, among others.
On our media training courses, we talk about it being vital spokespeople use the same language in an interview they would if they were talking to a friend or family member in a pub or café.
Who cares?
Another issue with the interview is that much of what Mr Bates said doesn’t pass the ‘who cares’ test.
People don’t care how “excited” BlackBerry is about its new products, the “major changes” it has been through, or its reflections on the progress it has made under new leaders. It is meaningless content for the audience.
With any new product, people want to know how it differs from what is on the market and how it could make their lives easier. Ultimately, Mr Bates needed to explain why people should buy a BlackBerry.
Feedback
This BBC Breakfast interview was not the only one Mr Bates carried out on the day.
It would seem unlikely that he went from studio to studio without any comms people in tow.
So, why were they not advising him on what had happened in his interviews up to that point and what he should do in the ones to follow?
On the same morning as the BBC Breakfast interview, Mr Bates gave an interview with Radio 5 Live Breakfast where he ignored six attempts from the journalist to find out what he had learnt from the iPhone.
On our media training courses, we stress that if you have a round of media interviews, you must factor in time between each one to think about what went well, what could have gone better and what to do differently in the next one.
In short, it was an interview that saw BlackBerry fail to connect. Instead of building excitement about the new product, Mr Bates produced a moment of car crash television.
Perhaps though, we should not have been that surprised. Just two years earlier, Mike Lazaridis, the founder and then co-chief executive of Research In Motion – the company behind BlackBerry - terminated a BBC interview after facing questions about the security of its devices in the Middle East and North Africa.
He memorably claimed the question was “unfair” and told the reporter he couldn’t use the footage. And he deflected focus away from the tablet his company was about to launch.
Oh, BlackBerry – we are going to miss you.
Media First are media and communications training specialists with over 35 years of experience. We have a team of trainers, each with decades of experience working as journalists, presenters, communications coaches and media trainers.
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