QUOTED: A brand strategist explains why the Black Eyed Peas couldn’t fix RIM

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They did lots of promotion with the guys from the Black Eyed Peas trying to be cool, and we told them that cool ... was not an attribute that they were going to displace Apple from at all. I’m not sure they quite ever got that.

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—Matthew Kelly, a brand strategy consultant who worked with Research in Motion from late 2009 to early 2011, on some early signs of an identity crisis at the now-struggling tech giant. Kelly says that when RIM should have been focusing on innovation and new products, it was instead straining to seem hip, rather than stodgy and out of touch. Apparently, copious shots of the Playbook in a Black Eyed Peas music video (they start around the 2:15 mark) didn’t quite do the trick.  [Global News]