Established in 1928, Motorola was an American multinational telecommunications company that is present around the world. The kind of competition that is present in the telecommunication industry brought up a lot of challenges for Motorola and when it was compared to big global competitor like Apple and Samsung, its brand equity was very mediocre. This can be explained through following factors:
Brand Awareness
Motorola has been through many phases throughout its existence. While it was one of the pioneers that introduced mobile phones in the industry, and it gained a lot of popularity and awareness through it. The iconic Motorola phone became very popular all around the world. Everyone wanted to own that brick-type Motorola phone and that became the iconic symbol of the mobile phones. It came in many colors and it was because of that phone that Motorola gained so much awareness around the world. But then, when other competitors came into the market, Motorola was unable to catch up with the innovation and started losing its brand awareness, it was eventually shut down by Lenovo, a company which had acquired Motorola.
Brand Loyalty
Motorola gained its popularity and fame very quickly after it entered the industry, because it was one of the pioneers who introduced stylish mobile phones with all the services. So, at the time of the high time for Motorola, it had a huge number of brand followers which were also loyal to the brand. Later, it started losing that when it was unable to catch up with the emerging technology.
Brand Image
Even today, after Motorola mobiles have ceased to exist, people all around the world remember the brand as the one that introduced the classic and iconic mobile phone that could flip and open. At that time, Motorola enjoyed a very good image in terms of quality and style of their products. Although it was unable to impress later on, that image still remains the same for Motorola.
Brand Assets:
Motorola was one of those companies that operated in many countries so it had a lot of assets, most important being their reputation and brand equity. But later, when it was unable to generate profits, it was acquired by Google which later gave it up to Lenovo. While their brand assets became Lenovo’s assets, they were unable to deliver the improved quality and experience that they were aiming for, thus losing out on their assets as well.
Brand Elements: The world’s famous slogan ‘Hello Moto’ is still remembered by users of that time when Motorola enjoyed the height of its popularity. Other than that, their logo which was just the letter ‘M’ also got awareness and that awareness still exists as people can recognize the brand through the logo and the slogan, even though the products do not exist now.
Brand Associations
Users or customers of the time when Motorola was the ‘cool’ mobile brand associated the brand with attributes like quality, style and convenience. While Motorola never differentiated on price factor, it was never viewed as a cheap phone. The brand was always associated with classiness and style. Moreover, people all around the world remember the brand association with David Beckham which added a lot to the overall brand equity of Motorola at that time.
While Motorola is expected to make a comeback anytime soon, let’s see what the future holds in terms of brand equity of Motorola.
Reference
Chahal, M., Vizard, S., Bacon, J., Woollen, P., Fleming, M., Barnett, M., … Joy, S. (2017, March 28). Motorola places bets on early adopters for brand revival. Retrieved March 20, 2018, from https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/03/02/motorola-mobile-world-congress/
Ghosh, S. We haven’t figured out what to do with the Motorola brand, says Lenovo marketing boss. Retrieved March 20, 2018, from https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/havent-figured-motorola-brand-says-lenovo-marketing-boss/1359079
Gibbs, S. (2016, January 8). Motorola brand to cease to exist. Retrieved March 20, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/08/motorola-brand-killed-off-lenovo