Bell runs its first BlackBerry Z10 ad; Rogers takes pre-orders for the BlackBerry Q10

Yes, we get that the Super Bowl ad by BlackBerry was supposed to be funny in a way to get people talking about BlackBerry for days and weeks afterward. While BlackBerry might have achieved that goal, there are some who believe that the company would have been better off producing an ad that showed off some of the features of the new OS and phone. These people feel that with the large Super Bowl television audience looking on, BlackBerry could have shown the viewers why they would be better off with a BlackBerry Z10 than their current phone.

If you were disappointed with the BlackBerry Super Bowl ad, you probably are going to have the same response to Canadian carrier Bell's first ad for the BlackBerry Z10. Once again, the phone itself is rarely seen and while the Super Bowl ad had humor, the spot for Bell is neither funny nor tech-oriented.  Apparently, marketing people have short memories because an unfocused ad campaign hurt the Palm Pre, which was expected to be the next Apple iPhonecoming out of CES in 2009. On the other hand, Motorola and Verizon focused on the things that "iDon't, DROID does," and it was the Motorola DROID that kicked off Androidmania. Features sell phones. Even those that couldn't tell the difference between quad-core and an apple core can be sold on the premise of a faster processor.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Canadian carrier Rogers said it would start taking pre-orders for the BlackBerry Q10, apparently the world's first carrier to take reservations of the physical QWERTY enabled BlackBerry10 device. There is some speculation that the phone will launch in April with an earlier launch possible in Canada. The BlackBerry Q10 is for those long time BlackBerry users who can't do without the physical BlackBerry QWERTY.

source: Bell, Rogers via Crackberry (1), (2)