What a Netflix movie taught me about relevance, risk, and reinvention

written by Judith Silva

The other night I was doing what I often do to unwind - watch a movie that somehow pulled me straight back into work mode. BlackBerry (now streaming on Netflix) had me hooked from the opening scene. It’s a story about chaos, ambition, and one of the greatest cautionary tales in tech history and while I never owned a BlackBerry myself (I went from Nokia to early iPhone devotee), I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I didn’t just watch the movie, I googled it and read whatever I could find. I fell down the rabbit hole of Research In Motion (RIM), the Canadian company that once owned the smartphone market and then lost it all. And as someone who spends their days building, positioning and protecting brands, I couldn’t help but view it through the lens of marketing and PR.

So here are five lessons that stuck with me - from a brand that soared, stalled, and slipped into obscurity.

1. Being first isn’t the same as staying relevant

BlackBerry was a game-changer. It gave the world mobile email and it defined smartphone before the term even existed. And for a hot minute, it was everywhere - in boardrooms, on hip-holsters and in rap lyrics. But when the world shifted to touchscreens, apps, and intuitive UX, BlackBerry hesitated. They didn’t innovate fast enough and worse, they didn’t listen fast enough.

PR & brand lesson: You don’t own attention, you borrow it. And to keep it, you need to stay curious, humble, and constantly evolving. Innovation isn't just launching something new, it's knowing when to let go of what used to work.

2. If your team is at war, your brand will be too

The movie paints a dysfunctional internal culture that is full of brilliant engineers clashing with ego-driven execs, and vision misaligned with execution. And the cracks in culture eventually showed up in the product, in the media, and in the market.

PR & brand lesson: Brand starts from the inside. If your team doesn’t trust the mission, your audience won’t either. Culture isn’t a ‘nice to have’, it’s your first and most important comms strategy.

3. Denial is more dangerous than disruption

RIM saw Apple coming. They saw the iPhone, and they knew the game was changing, but instead of meeting that disruption head-on, they delayed and they tinkered. They doubled down on the past while the future was sprinted ahead.

PR & brand lesson: Every brand will face disruption. But the brands that survive are the ones that don’t flinch. They get uncomfortable, they ask hard questions, and they move fast and stay flexible. If you’re not actively challenging your own model, someone else will do it for you.

4. The story matters more than the specs

For a while, BlackBerry didn’t need ads because the product was the story. But when competitors overtook them, BlackBerry had nothing else to lean on. No emotional hook and no deeper purpose. Just a logo, some keyboard nostalgia, and a growing sense of irrelevance.

PR & brand lesson: Your product might get someone in the door, but it's your brand story that keeps them there. So tell me - What do you stand for? Why does it matter? What do people feel when they see your name? If you can’t answer that, neither can your customer and that there is the problem.

5. Reputation can’t run on autopilot

BlackBerry once had serious brand capital. It was trusted, secure and essential, but they stopped investing in their narrative. When media sentiment shifted, they weren’t ready. There was no strong voice to set the record straight and no storytelling muscle to pivot the perception.

PR & brand lesson: Reputations are built over time and lost in an instant. You need to be as intentional about protecting your brand as you are about building it. That means consistent messaging, active media engagement, and a story that evolves with you.

Final thoughts from my couch to your boardroom

You don’t need to have used a BlackBerry to learn from its fall. You just need to be building something because relevance is temporary, attention is rented, and no one is immune from becoming “the old way of doing things.”

Watching BlackBerry reminded me why I love this work and why brand strategy matters, why storytelling is power, why culture, clarity and courage aren’t buzzwords when they’re in fact survival tools.

And most of all, why letting go of what once made you great might be the boldest move you can make.

Your relevance is on a countdown so let’s make sure your brand doesn’t end up as a business school case study. Call us before your BlackBerry moment hits.