BlackBerry delivers 'wake up' manifesto

Research In Motion has delivered the big reveal it promised last week after admitting it was behind an attention-grabbing mock protest outside a Sydney Apple store.

Following on from the theme of the protest – ‘wake up’ – the company has launched a website, wakeupbebold.com, featuring audio of an Australian man reading a motivational statement about being business.

"Business is no longer just a suit-wearing, cubicle-sitting, card-carrying kind of pursuit,” the statement reads.

"These days being ‘in business’ means you’re the kind of person who takes action and makes things happen.

"For those of us with our eyes wide open, we need to realise there’s only one device for people who mean business... the brand that’s been in business from the very beginning.”

Taking on Apple was a big risk for RIM, but while Samsung has had some success with the same strategy, this ‘reveal’ has fallen flat with commentators, who have called it ‘boring’ and ‘anticlimactic’.

"It’s hard to see how it will push RIM’s agenda forward,” writes CNet’s Don Reisinger.

"The company attempted in the video to make customers think differently and ‘be bold’, but those are the very things RIM itself has been unable to do.

"RIM’s ‘wake up’ campaign is just more of the same: ineffective marketing that’s only exacerbating the company’s struggles.”

What do you think of the campaign? Is it as dire as the commentators are saying, or is any publicity good publicity? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.