Vunderkind
Social Member
Justin Bieber 'rocking' a Bold 9700
This week, Vincent Washington, former Blackberry business development manager (2001-2011) revealed that Justin Bieber, when he was just starting out as a fresh kid on the musical block, had approached the company, which was called RIM at the time. Apparently, Justin Bieber had wanted to be the company’s brand ambassador at the time (when RIM was so popular, and Justin Bieber was just ‘uprising’), and the company turned him down.
To quote Vincent Washington:
One thing we missed out on was that Justin Bieber wanted to rep BlackBerry. He said: 'Give me $200,000 and 20 devices, and I’m your brand ambassador.' And we pitched that to marketing: Here’s a Canadian kid, he grew up here, all the teeny-boppers will love that. They basically threw us out of the room. They said: 'This kid is a fad. He’s not going to last.'
I said at the meeting: 'This kid might outlive RIM.' Everyone laughed...
A line from James Blunt comes to mind: “look who’s alone now, it’s not me, it’s not me…”