Blackberry says no to Hamilton

Blackberry gets it all wrong again – big mistake not featuring drivers

BlackBerry will not feature F1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in its advertising, "despite reportedly paying $12M a year to sponsor the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team," according to Matthew Chapman of MARKETING MAGAZINE. The smartphone maker will launch activity with Mercedes and its drivers to coincide with the start of the season this month, "but will eschew traditional celebrity product endorsement."

BlackBerry Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben said ads will focus on showing the BlackBerry 10 operating system in a "real life" context rather than "paying a celebrity to say you should buy the device because I’m famous and I’m telling you to do it." Hamilton and Rosberg "will be used in ‘content-oriented projects’ along similar lines" to BlackBerry’s activity with singer Alicia Keys and author Neil Gaiman. Marketing Magazine