New Targets

With mobile phones being the new big thing in advertising I thought it would be interesting to examine another sector in the mobile market, that of the phones themselves and how they are targeted. Specifically I've been reading a little about the next generation of smartphones and found it interesting to see how trends have been going recently.

Since their inception smartphones have been designed and targeted towards mobile professionals, or people with lots of money and the need for nifty gadgets. But business has really been the target because the features designed into such devices naturally lend themselves to business. You'd only see Blackberries on those that got them from work to keep in touch via email at all times.

But then in the last few years there has been a shift in the marketing of these products. Now Blackberries are being loaded up with features and apps that are meant to appeal to a wider consumer base and not being targeted solely towards businesses anymore. They are trying to become the phone for anyone and everyone who talks, texts and emails.

The flip side is the iPhone, created for the individual, they are now working to incorporate enterprise email capabilities to begin to market towards businesses. While I personally haven't seen much marketing on either of these products yet, except for the writeups online that I've read, I think it will be very interesting to see how things pan out when the next generation of Blackberry and iPhone hit the shelves and start really competing for similar targets.