Brand Equity Study of Motorola

“Motorola exists to invent, build and deliver the best mobile device on the planet, improving the lives of millions of people”

-Vision Statement of Motorola

1.      RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:

This research project is carried out to evaluate the Brand Equity of Motorola mobility.

2.      RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

The research was carried out in two stages. The first one is secondary research, followed by the in-depth interview with the Moto G users. 10 in-depth interviews were conducted where the questions are asked about the brand identity of the Moto G and about the customer perception.

3.      ABOUT MOTOROLA MOBILITY:

Motorola is an American telecommunication device manufacturer based at Chicago. They created the world’s first commercial portable cellular phones. On August 2011 Google acquired Motorola mobility division for US$12.5 billion. During 2003 to 2007, worldwide Motorola was one of the leading mobile phone manufacturer. But due to lack of product innovation, continuous improvement, Motorola lost its significant market share. Apart from Moto Razr, Motorola failed to cater the changing need of the customers. But in the late 2013, the introduction of moto G, moto E and moto X (the android versions) resulted some eye-catching results for Motorola. Moto Razr was the biggest success for Motorola. Around 130 million units of moto Razr was sold during 2003 to 2006. 

4.      GLOBAL MOBILE PHONE MARKET:

The global mobile phone market is one of the most competitive and highly volatile market. And in the era of smartphone, technologies change very rapidly as well as the customer preferences. The current valuation (2014) of the global smartphone market is around US$150.3 billion. And the following shows the market share wise breakup for the major brands:

A current report on the ranking of smartphones as per the brand preferences reviles that Apple stands out as most preferred brand for smartphones followed by Samsung and Nokia. Motorola is the number eight in the brand preference list.  

Once pioneer and market leader of mobile phones, Motorola is way behind its competitors to attract the tech savvy customers. The following figure shows the perceptual map (by June 2013) for the global smart phone brands:

We can clear observe that Motorola is catering to the mass market and the durability is unquestionable but it lacks the feature end as well as style and design to attract the youth. Whereas Sony, Nokia and Apple phones are more stylish and trendy and the market leader Samsung is highly equipped with many features.

To analyze the problem, let’s look at the consumer buying journey for any budget smartphone.    

      5.      CONSUMER BUYING JOURNEY:

The following shows the funnel for consumer decision journey for any product.

It all started with customers awareness set of brand, followed by Familiarity set of brands, then the consideration set and purchase set. Finally the consumer moves to loyalty. If we follow the above funnel method for any budget smartphone buying, then a hypothetical funnel may look like as given below:

The awareness set of budget smartphone contains eight models from Samsung, Micromax, Nokia, Motorola, Asus, Xiaomi, HTC and Lenovo. Moving along the funnel, the purchase set contains three brands: Nokia, Samsung and Motorola.

The customers always consider any brand in their purchase set when they have a clear and strong imagery for the brands.

       6.      NEW MOTO SERIES:

The new moto series of smartphones are launched in the later part of 2013. Moto X was unveiled on August 2013, followed by Moto G on 13^th November 2013 and Moto E was launched on 13^th May 2014. The sole objective of introducing these low end budget smartphone is to tap the growing price sensitive young segments. These models are initially launched in developing market like Latin America and South-East Asia, subsequently they are launched in the developed markets.    

       7.      THE TRINITY OF BRAND STRATEGY:

The current brand strategy of Motorola can be analyzed by using the trinity of brand strategy.

       7.1   VALUE PROPOSITION:

“Value for money” is the value proposition for Moto G.

       7.2   POSITIONING:

The Brand Mantra for Moto G is “Exceptional Phone, Exceptional Price”. Like many other smartphone it has various common features like Android OS, Dual SIM, Feature loaded, google play enabled etc. The PODs of Moto G is the only phone as of now provides latest android OS (ver. 4.4.2/KitKat) Ergonomic design and Google OK in a very attractive price. If we look into the substantiator: 1million Moto G are sold in India in 5 months.      

       7.3   BRAND IDENTITY:

The above depicts the brand identity prism for Moto G. The rallying cry for Moto G is “Good things come in small packages”. The Capabilities of Moto G are the aesthetic, up to dated OS, good user interaction. The personality (human traits) of Moto G are young, resourceful and honest. The shared values are “value for money” and “Express Yourself”. The aspirational self-image that Moto G has smart, up to date and efficient. The Noble Purpose is “Access to all” and the Internal Culture and Value is “Uncompromised value & quality”  

8.RAND ELEMENTS:

The above shows three brand elements of Motorola. The slogan “Intelligence Everywhere” the brand name and the new logo.

A recent survey reviles that the association of Motorola with Google created a hype in the market and positive response from the market.

        9.      VERDICT:    

Brands are intangible. They are difficult to isolate, hard to measure. There are no simple formulas for measuring a brand’s “return,” or—when cared for poorly—measuring its drag on financial performance. But a brand’s intangibility is also what makes it so valuable (and in turn makes a sensitive measurement tool for brands all the more valuable).

Differentiation is the catalyst for action in brand development. It’s the first step to the other Pillars of the Brand. Motorola believes in making fewer-but more differentiated-Android devices

The second step in brand development is Relevance. If a brand isn’t relevant, or personally appropriate to consumers, it isn’t going to attract and keep them. Differentiation can lead to a fling, but without a belief that there is a relevant connection to one’s own life, a consumer won’t engage in a serious long-term loyalty. Relevance means Motorola standing for something. Rather than trying to become everything to everybody with a “game changer” handset as per old Motorola’s strategy, the new strategy is to be relevant to the consumer’s everyday needs .Motorola currently focuses on giving consumers better tools to tell their own story. Motorola’s mantra currently is “Doing common things uncommonly well”.

The third key measure identified is Esteem— the extent to which consumers like a brand and hold it in high regard. Esteem relates to how well a brand fulfills its implied or overtly stated consumer promise. It doesn’t occur without Differentiation and Relevance having preceded it, but it can outlive those Pillars by many years. In regards to this dimension being one the oldest brand in the field and being known for its uncompromising quality puts Motorola on a positive stead.

If a brand has established its Relevant Differentiation and consumers come to hold it in high Esteem, brand Knowledge is the outcome. High Knowledge means consumers understand and have internalized what the brand stands for. Motorola has reached this stage in the mind of the customers.

       10.      REFERENCES:

• Chawla, D. & Sondhi, N. (2011). Research Methodology Concepts and Cases. New Delhi: Vikash Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.
• Kotler, P. & Keller, K.L. (2012). Marketing Management. Fourteenth Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
• Motorola (n.d.).Company Profile. Retrieved August 21, 2014 http://www.motorola.com/us/About-Motorola/Corporate-About-Motorola.html
• Motorola (n.d.).Company Profile. Retrieved August 20, 2014 http://www.motorola.com/us/consumers/about-motorola-us/About_Motorola-Corporate_Overview/About_Motorola-Corporate_Overview.html
• TOI Tech. (2014, Feb 07) Moto G vs top three rivals Retrieved August 19, 2014, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/slideshow/moto-g-vs-top-three-rivals/itslideshowviewall/30003600.cms
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• http://www.labbrand.com/knowledge/labreport/brand-positioning-strategies-rising-chinese-smartphone-brands      
• http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/the_consumer_decision_journey
• http://www.brandamplitude.com/blog/item/value-proposition-brand-identity-and-positioning-why-your-brand-needs-all-three
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• http://www.amzer.com/blog/2013/06/motorola-mobility-gets-colourful-new-logo-with-official-google-association/           
• http://web.pdx.edu/~sbaweb/faculty/ahutinel/Read/5.pdf