Motorola hopes a more unified brand message will give it buzz in Europe

Motorola is working towards building a more consistent brand message as it ups efforts to grow in core regions beyond Latin America.

This is at the top of Renata Altenfelder’s list of immediate priorities six months into her role as Motorola’s global brand and marketing lead.

“We need to understand how we can better use the brand in different markets but talking about the same message,” Altenfelder told Marketing Week at Mobile World Congress this week, where Motorola confirmed it will be launching a foldable phone.

“One thing I see here [at Mobile World Congress] is that we have completely different market development across the world. Our brand has a different stage of development, and the business in the countries has a different stage of development. But at the end what people want are the same thing.

“What I need to do is put Motorola into those different markets with the same message. We are global but we respect very strongly the local needs.”

While Motorola has a strong presence in Latin America, uptake of its products in the UK and the rest of Europe has been much slower. In the UK, for example, Motorola has a market share of just 1.77%, according to Statista.

To boost that, Motorola believes having a good relationship with specialists and reviewers is “really important” as it looks to gain the trust and favour of European consumers.

“PR is a key pillar,” Altenfelder, who spent 16 years at Unilever, said. “When you ask consumers who they trust when they are going to buy their phone, they trust the reviewers. They can hear what I say, or Motorola, or what the other brands are saying, but then they are going to check with the specialists they trust if it is true or not true.

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“Having a good relationship with those key journalists, reviewers, tech blogs, for them to understand our strategy and to understand what we want to do with the brand, how our products are related with our brand strategy, this is really important because that is one of the places our consumers are going to look for it.”

Motorola’s first foray into 5G, set to roll out in the US this year, comes in the form of a ‘mod’ that can be attached to Motorola devices to upgrade them to 5G.

This is an example of where product and marketing teams work “very close”, Altenfelder says. But to make sure they understand one another, Motorola has a specific person responsible for product marketing to act as a “bridge” between the engineering and development side, and marketing.

“[That involves] really understanding the real user case of our technology for the end benefit of consumers,” Altenfelder explains. “If we don’t do that, how are people interested in technology? Most people like technology when they understand what it can do for their life.”

Motorola is also building a “very strong” CRM programme to better understand how consumers are using their phones, where the pain points are and how they can be improved.

It is also extending use of NPS [net promoter score] across Latin America and other parts of the world following a successful pilot launch in Brazil. Altenfelder says this is “really important” to ensure Motorola remains “consumer-centric” with its product development.