What would you do for a BlackBerry Storm?
That was the subject of a contest held over at Crackberry.com recently for those who consider themselves BlackBerry addicts. They were giving away 10 BlackBerry Storms to those who were willing to do whatever it took to win one (and they actually had to follow through on their promise!).
They received 3,000 entries to the contest and “a popular theme of entry that emerged was extreme brand loyalty, or in other words, showing off your love for BlackBerry and/or CrackBerry for the whole world to see.”
The first winner was TJ of Revelation Tattoos in Toledo OH, who had a lifesized BlackBerry tattooed on his leg. Two things of note: 1. TJ didn’t pay for his tattoo. He works at the shop and had it done for free. 2. The tattoo artist, Brian, is a total Mac fanboy and die-hard iPhone lover. It must have killed him to do this tattoo!
While I don’t find the fact that he had the tattoo done to win a phone all that shocking (I hang out with a LOT of tattoo fanatics/artists who get work done for less meaningful things), I find the backlash a little surprising. What makes this guy’s tattoo any different from anyone willing to have a Harley-Davidson tattoo put on their body? It’s essentially showing the same kind of “extreme brand loyalty.”
If you’re interested in reading the war of comments you can read them at Crackberry.com and on Information Week’s blog, which also did a post about this today.








November 12th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I think the difference is that a Harley tattoo is relatively timeless. Harley’s been around for 105 years, has survived through tough times, and will probably be around for years to come. Plus, tattooing the MoCo’s brand on your arm is an homage to the company, not to any particular model.
A tattoo of one particular model of ANY electronics, cell phone or otherwise, is going to be relatively irrelevant, even goofy, in a very short timespan. I remember seeing a tattoo a fear years ago of a Pentium 200 chip. Think that guy still thinks it’s cool today?
November 18th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Tatto according to you including art?