RIM's Wake Up campaign sets out nonsense mission statement

Oh, RIM. Things must really be bad. Not content with hiring a load of stooges to descend upon Apple Stores with signs reading 'Wake Up', it's now followed this up with a website setting out what it means to be in business nowadays. It's like someone at RIM snapped, Jerry Maguire-style and tried to rewrite the rulebook, without really thinking it through.

Because the dedicated website is big on hyperbole, with no mention of what this has to do with BlackBerry smart phones. Swing and a miss.

"Wake Up," the voiceover intones. "It's time to mean business. Now before you go looking for your suit and briefcase, we're not talking about that that kind of business." Apparently business is no longer a "suit-wearing, cubicle-sitting, card-carrying kind of pursuit."

There follows a load of empty motivational speak about how if you want to be in business, you have to be the kind to "leave your mark and eat opportunity for breakfast", rather than "just float through life like a cork in the stream." Eat opportunity for breakfast? Does anyone actually speak like that?

"You don't just think different… you do different," it says, taking a sideswipe at Apple's famous slogan.

Now I don't want to be harsh, and I certainly don't want to be the type to kick RIM when it's down, but come on. It's really not doing itself any favours with this kind of guff. Where's the substance to its argument? It says it's been in business since the beginning, but that doesn't mean anything to someone looking for their next smart phone, as numerous companies have found out. And attacking bigger, more successful rivals? Unnecessary.

I really think RIM has underestimated its customers on this one, thinking we'll be taken in with a lot of marketing speak, when what we really want are some decent phones. What do you reckon? And how can RIM turn around its fortunes? Let me know in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.