When one of the world’s most iconic phone makers plans a regional comeback by dropping one of the world’s most iconic phones back in stores, your nostalgic self makes a little dance and your professional self tries to make the stars align.
This is exactly what happened when Motorola came to us with this simple yet challenging objective: make the new Motorola Razr release a hit and establish the phone as a premium device by capitalizing on the brand’s trademarks and history.
But many challenges were paving Motorola’s path: for starters, people haven’t heard about the brand in a long time, and flip phones are no longer the big thing. Moreover, the phone’s premium price put it on par with the iPhone, which has been dominating the market for quite some time. Last but not least, the release was planned in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, which had affected everyone and all sectors around the globe.
Despite all that, we had to think of a way to reintroduce Motorola to the market and make this campaign a success, as this was a make-or-break moment for the brand.
The first phase of the solution process was to establish the launch strategy: determining where the brand stands, identifying the competition and pinpointing our opportunities.
This is when we found that there was indeed an opportunity for a brand like Motorola to make a resounding comeback and appeal to our target audience (millennial and Gen Z), especially now with 80s & 90s brands dominating the market once more.
After thoroughly assessing all factors and studying our market and target audience, we were ready to localize. We took the iconic and nostalgic “Hello Motto” statement and turned it into “Hala Motto” in Saudi dialect. Next, we collaborated with one of KSA’s top and most loved fashion influencers among our target age group: Reem Al Suwaidi, who was herself a fan and user of the original Razr.
But instead of going through the usual shoot-style route and endorsing the brand, we scripted a 1-on-1 Q&A video with her, peeking inside her personal life, fact that made the content more authentic and interesting to her audience.
Although this was enough of a hit to increase phone sales by 25%, we threw in a competition giving people the chance to win a new Motorola Razr 5G by sharing a memory they’ve had with the old phone. This gave a lot of insights on people’s love of the original phone and how it is truly engraved in their memory. It also added over 4k followers to Motorola’s Instagram page in only a week.
Despite the client’s initial concerns given the fierce competition and the fact that the brand hadn’t made an appearance in over a decade, we were able to beat the odds by increasing sales by 25% and the social media follower count by 8K throughout the whole launch.
As such, we positioned the new Motorola Razr as a fashionable & functional flip phone among our target audience and helped Motorola come back strong, with a fashionable, localized statement.