Case study: How Motorola roared back in India entirely on digital brand building

Rachna Lather, Head of Marketing, Motorola Mobility India, speaks about how Motorola's campaigns have helped bolster the consumer engagement factor for the brand

Aanchal Kohli | Mumbai | July 21, 2015

Rachna Lather

Creating consumer engagement across social platforms has become the norm for brands to keep the consumers at the heart of every business decision. Motorola Mobility is one such brand that has initiated quite a few campaigns to enhance its consumer engagement across social platforms – be it the 'Hero without a cape' campaign for Father's Day this year, or asking consumers to create their own version of Motorola's 'batwing logo' as part of its 60th anniversary celebrations.

In conversation with BestMediaInfo.com, Rachna Lather, Head of Marketing, Motorola Mobility India, speaks at length about the various campaign initiatives, marketing activities, the mobile industry in India and more.

Campaigns at their best

The brand has been doing various social campaigns as part of its strategy to ensure consumers are at the heart of every business decision. Some of their recent campaigns, including Motography, #MyMotoLogo, and #MotoDadTunes, have garnered positive consumer response.

#Motography was a four-week long nationwide collaboration, where users shared their love for India with the rest of the world by clicking away with their Motorola handsets. It was an innovative photography contest that nurtured natural curiosity about India and challenged users to discover India on their own terms.

With Father's Day and World Music Day being on the same day this year, June 21, Motorola amalgamated the best of the both to give the audiences a platform to get their words sung aloud with the #MotoDadTunes campaign. This was live streamed, being India's first ever Father's Day crowdsourced song, through the voice of Man Goes Human. The result was a heartfelt Father's Day song, called 'Hero without a cape', the video of which is available on YouTube.

Speaking about the #MyMotoLogo campaign, Lather said, “To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Motorola's batwing logo with the fans, we asked them to create their own version of the iconic logo, whether through a doodle, an installation or even graffiti. We ran the contest across all social channels. Fans and enthusiasts participated in the contest by simply going to the microsite and sharing their creation using the hashtag #MyMotoLogo to cherish 60 years of togetherness. Six lucky winners got a chance to win a Moto X each with their own customised logo on it.”

Marketing Strategies: Hit or Miss?

According to Lather, the joint marketing strategy with Flipkart and Motorola in owning and operating the business had been very successful so far. “Our communication has been very effective and it is evident from the great consumer response that we have received over the last one year. Having said that, we also do a lot of ATL, digital and OOH campaigns. Our media mix has been different from that of other handset makers, since we are an online-only brand. Digital and social have been the primary go-to mediums for us for our marketing initiatives,” she mentioned.

Lather claimed that all the campaigns received an overwhelming response from people across the country. In fact, seeing the response to the Motography campaign in May 2014, the month-long engagement programme was extended till Independence Day.

Apart from that, fans and enthusiasts of Motorola actively participated in the #MyMotoLogo contest by going to the microsite and sharing their creation using the hashtag #MyMotoLogo. Lather said that more than 2,000 entries were received for the contest.

She further said, “The #MotoDadTunes campaign reached over 7,663,374 people and engaged with over 1,140,543 people online, receiving over 10,000 tweets. #MotoDadTunes trended nationally on Twitter on the first day of the campaign and #MotoDadTunesLIVE trended nationally on Twitter during the live webcast. Popular bloggers and Bollywood celebrities like Ayushmann Khurana and Raftaar tweeted about the live event on their social media profiles. Additionally, the #MotoDadTunes videos (prelude and live) have received 61,981 views on YouTube.”

Added Values

Throughout the digital world, there is a growing glut of products and services. That glut has been exacerbated by the Internet, where countless new companies are doing business in entirely new ways. Meanwhile, brands are blending into one another, blurring categories and creating whole new sets of competitors. In this maelstrom, it isn't surprising that companies find it difficult to differentiate themselves amongst the millennials.

Lather remarked, “A winning mindshare strategy, one that is integrated into a brand's overall strategy, can make a huge difference in overcoming these challenges. Motorola has been able to cut through the noisy clutter of the campaign place, heightening awareness of its products, launches or services and shifting demand in its favour. Increasingly, we see Motorola in an industry of smartphones transforming its creative lead into a brand-driven 'mindshare momentum' that keeps Moto lovers engaged and informed.”

When asked whether the campaigns led to good sales revenues too or merely helped create brand awareness, Lather replied, “We are very pleased with our sales so far, although we can't discuss specifics. People are already aware about our brand as they communicate the same through #Motolove on our social media platforms and hence, we get such overwhelming response for our products and participation in campaigns. These campaigns keep us engaged with our fans and our community at large. Our brand has witnessed increased visibility and we have seen a consistent increase in numbers when it comes to our fan following and participation after we launch innovative campaigns, teasers, contests on the social media platform.”

Objective behind Marketing

Every brand that starts a marketing campaign has some objective and thought behind the same. Speaking on this, Lather remarked, “I think the thought and objective both are important. The objective need not always be about increasing the sales revenue, but people engagement and the kind of responses we receive also matter. At this point, digital media channels are our main focus as they have become not only marketing and communication tools, but also allow Motorola to generate discussion and conversation, building community and e-connectivity within and outside the organisation.”

To achieve this, Motorola realises it has to really engage its people and embrace social media. Over the years, digital media channels have gained traction in the market as they have become not only marketing and communication tools, but allow the brands to generate discussion and increase conversations, building community and e-connectivity within and outside the organisation. “We have also embraced various social channels, including Facebook and Twitter, as well as content marketing tool, Instagram,” she added.

The Growth Factor

While acknowledging that the smartphone market is becoming very competitive, Lather said, “The market sees a new product launch almost every day in various segments. We, therefore, have a strategic customer and media centric engagement to ensure we pre-empt the aggressive wave of competition and duplication of strategy and establish our credentials as a game changing, unconventional, challenger brand that will be successful in the market. Motorola entered the market and grew quickly again because we focused entirely on the end of the marketing funnel – the consumer. We created products that people would value. Not only did we do it with a particular set of differentiation around value for money, but also gave them lots of personalisation and software choices. Consumer focused approach is important for us and we intend to continue with that,” she added.

In terms of value, Motorola is the fourth largest smartphone player in the country. Though Lather refrained from revealing their volume as the quarter is yet to close, she mentioned that they were way ahead of the 3-million mark that Motorola revealed in January this year.

Mobile Industry in India

With the mobile industry becoming increasingly complicated, Lather noted that the high-end smartphone market had seen some significant changes recently with several very high quality 'flagship' devices from newer players, many from China. “The competition in the mobile industry is fierce, but at Motorola, we have thought out the right tools and plans in order to reach further success,” she added.

Talking about the Indian market, Lather said, “We believe in putting the consumer first by providing smartphones available at different price points, powered with rich features, giving our customers more choices. We want to empower our consumers with a smartphone that best suits their needs and at the same time is successful in creating a unique user experience that would change the lifestyle of the Indian consumer. Motorola will continue to focus on what it does best, which is creating amazing mobile technology that connects people to the world and what matters to them.”

“We are connected with a large community of our Moto fans through Motorola and Flipkart social channels offering them strong support and engagement. India is a very important market for us and we are highly committed to the region through aggressive plans with more products that are locally relevant,” she added.

Plan of Action

When asked about the plan of action for this year, she said, “This year, we have been focusing on delivering great service to our customers in the market. We will continue to introduce products that don't compromise on quality, style or experiences. We have a very aggressive plan for customer service in India and will keep listening to our consumers and refining our strategy for the Indian market.”

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