Blackberry rejected Justin Bieber, but Nokia ready to make him one less lonely girl

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Blackberry’s death spiral has seen many executives being laid off, and they are now more than ready to talk about the poor decision making in the chaotic company.

One of the most interesting stories, reported by Crackberry, was the company passing up a major endorsement by teenybopper star Justin Bieber, who offered to be a brand ambassador for Blackberry.

Vincent Washington, who was senior business development manager at BlackBerry from 2001-2011, reported that Justin Bieber had approached BlackBerry and wanted to be their brand ambassador, but the response was "he’s not going to last."

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,” basically. 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.

With Blackberry sales hitting 0% in many regions, Washington’s prediction may end up being pretty prescient.

Nokia however has no issue with sloppy seconds, and on hearing about Blackberry’s rejection tweeted the above message, offering the Biebs his own selection of 20 Lumia handsets.

This is not the first time Nokia has offered to help Justin Bieber out.

Earlier this year the new bad boy of pop was touring Helsinki and had his tour bus raided, with drugs, stun guns and apparently also a phone confiscated by the police.

Nokia has however rushed to his rescue, and presented the teen idol with a specially customised Nokia Lumia 720 and a Lumia 920 with a matching pair of red Monster Purity Pro headphones.

We don’t know of Justin took Nokia up on its offer, but we would not be surprised if he turns up at the next Lumia launch, though I suspect this fee has gone up quite a bit over the last few years.

Thanks Martin for the tip.

More about the topics: blackberry, justin bieber, marketing, nokia, windows phone