Motorola Inc.: Advertising Campaign

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Introduction

Advertising is a medium of communication, usually one way in nature in which a message is passed from a sponsor to an intended target. Advertising varies from sales promotions, public relations, underwriting, publicity, sponsorships etc. There are also different mediums used to advertise messages and they include; television, billboards, internet, magazines, radio, newspapers etc. The overall advertisement costs for companies have been huge in the past especially before the internet generation and other modern marketing techniques. Even today, apart from internet advertisements, which are usually cheaper, television and other forms of advertisements are still being utilized.

In order to achieve the right customer attention, the companies would like to do preliminary research on how the designed advert will actual impact on the preference of the audience and it will have any negative implication on the public. Bad publicity will be very dangerous for a company and is usually irreversible. This paper will therefore discuss on the Motorola’s “Hellomoto” campaign aimed at promoting mobile phone handsets from the company. It will examine the roles of media research, testing the effectiveness of a particular advert and target audience considerations. It will also discuss research objectives for Motorola and the methodology used with regard to the Hellomoto campaign by Motorola.

Current advertisement- Hellomoto

Motorola inc. is an American multinational company dealing with the following products and services; embedded systems, microprocessors, mobile phones, two-way radios and networking Systems. Recently, it has produced a wide range of mobile phone handset that come with a complete entertainment provisional service that has improved its market share. In order to market these types of products, the company has embarked on an advertisement campaign “Hellomoto”. This advertisement has been placed across all medium of advertisements including the internet, billboards, radio and T.V in most countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

According to one of its managers in Japan, the advertisement has been researched and tested well in order to achieve its intended objective. “This advertisement will promote the use of mobile phones and showcase how mobile technologies can bring major social and economic benefits to people who have never before had access to information and communication technologies” Chong Eric, Asian regional manager said on the Motorola website.

Motorola has also realized that there are serious accidents that occur while motorists are driving their cars. The Hellmoto phones come with speakers which enable the person driving to easily communicate. Whenever, the phone rings it automatically alerts the driver who is legally suppose to place the car aside and talk. This campaign therefore advocates for safe driving

Research objectives

The main objectives of the research on that particular advert are; to define the theme of the advertisement, come up with media schedule and proper version, pre-test the advert, to ascertain the budgeting considerations of the advert if it will be cost-effective to the company or not. The research to be undertaken was to reveal the hidden appeals that make people buy certain products especially phone handsets from either this company or any other company such as Nokia. It seeks to define the most efficient access which would be in terms of quality, uniqueness or cost of the product.

The following picture taken by the hellomoto campaign in Asia expresses the motive of the advertisement

Research methodology

Research methods have been designed to consider what the advertiser is trying to do, his intentions and to examine the relationship between the specific structure, content and the appealing nature of the message and the group or individual to whom the advertisement targets. There are a range of research methods that are used to illustrate and investigate how media advertising has influenced young people. These methods are; cross-sectional surveys, key in-format studies (analysis of television viewing data which provides exposure measures), data on expenditure, cohort studies, in-depth qualitative interviews and focus groups.

On the “Hellomoto” campaign, this research would be purely be cross sectional survey and other in-depth qualitative interviews that are intended to provide a general overview of the audience on the advert. The Hellomoto campaign would be looked from two different perspectives. First, it would be looked at through representational point of view where the picture of a person holding the phone is more focused than the mobile phone itself. This means that the company needed to bring out the pleasures one achieves after buying a Motorola phone. The pleasure one gets from the entertainment aspect and services from the phone is enough to give someone the real ‘time off’ they need.

Target audience considerations

The target audience for this advertisement cuts across all the ages but leans mostly towards the youth. This group of customers is more interested in entertainment; music, videos etc and this is provided definitely by the Motorola phones.

A review of the cross sectional studies on mobile phone ads indicated that advertisements contribute a lot in customer preference and it influences the following trends as noticed among the youth.

A young persons knowledge of the specific type of phone
Preference rates for the Motorola products in general
Loyalty for the products
Current buying behaviours and trends
Intentions to buy the product and feel what the person in the advertisement feel

Creativity of the concept

To have the necessary attention from its audience who in this case are mostly the youth, the company needed to have something or brand that would meet the eye of the audience. This would be easily achieved through a unique word that would catch attention. The two words in the advert, ‘hello’ and ‘moto’ are unique in that they represent the nature of the communication efficiency to be provided by the products. ‘Moto’ is a Swahili word that describes how ‘hot’ something is. If a product is said to be hot, then it is of good quality. Moto is also a short name of Motorola. Likewise, ‘hello’ is the common way of response used while one receives a call. A combination of the three issues makes a complete advert. This is one of the creativity features the designers of this advert thought it could impact on the audience. Creativity in the sense that the advert will be capable of making the company save on costs and at the same time help it t achieve its objectives.

Proposition

The intention or scheme of the campaign is to market the entertainment features in “Hellomoto phones”. That is why most of the ads are pined with picture of young men and women. Most of the images placed on this advert are for women. The reason is obvious, the outfit, pose or facial expression of the women embraces all the elements of the phone thereby symbolizing the figurative dominance of the Motorola phones. It also clearly reinforces the message that crosses the mind of the reader or listener whenever such as message is placed on the television or radio or on a magazine. Previous research has also shown that the company’s ads including the ‘Notnowmoto’ campaign earlier back provided some form of idolization with regard to the phone itself which culminated to the superiority/ supremacy of the product.

The hellomoto campaign incorporates many other specific ads within it that specifies the specific phone. The ads include ‘Obeymenow’, ‘Notnowmoto’ among others. All these phones represent the wide variety of products the company can offer to suit the likes of its customers. Most of these ads give the feeling of coolness mostly associated with the youth and the modernized society. The research shows that if more focus is directed towards the spectator’s attention especially on a billboard, the message will optimistically be accepted by the target audience.

In order to complete the discourse of the advertisement, the “Hellomoto” clearly reflects the power, freedom and flexibility of communication. The person can shut up his interlocutor using appropriate keys in his or her mobile phone thus able to perform various tasks just for pleasure using the phone. This and other features make the marketing of the brands simple and the role of the advertisement is to reinforce that fact.

Testing effectiveness of the advert

Testing the effectiveness of the advert comes inline with the research objectives. It is largely in response to the way people perceive or interpret the meaning of the advert. When coming up with the theme of the advert and properly drafting it to be presented to the media, a prelude mock- up television commercial was then tested. Though the internet, the company can also place a comment box next to the advert to allow the audience gives their feedback. The company can target a sample of audience representing the market such as those of a community or an institution.

Folder technique

This technique involves the use of the use of more than one advert and withdrawn in order to gauge the response nature of the audience. In order to achieve the best result, different versions of the advert were tested. First, a press version was revealed to some respondents, and after wards withdrawn, and then respondents can be asked questions to test what they remember about the advert or how they felt about the advertisement⁵.

Sample technique

The company can ruin all its proposed advertisements to a specified number of participants in a specific venue which can be recorded for purposes of analysis. The company can also interview the same participants after the commercial has been run and then seek their views and reactions on the advert. In this case, the company can be sure of providing an advert that will be able to catch attention, legally acceptable, attractable, easy to understand and very effective.

Role of media research

Media research is very important while trying to obtain facts on the effects and perceive nature of the audience. It also provides a clear outline with which the company would follow while implementing the advert especially the time frame. Just before the company launched the “Hellomoto” campaign, it made sure that it would be successful and thrilling to the target audience. The media played a big role in, which was based on; creating the theme, defining the copy platform, testing the advert, the effects of the advert and also the target audience. Research in advertisement is meant to prevent wasting company resources on adverts which will not be effective.

Conclusion

The research has to be done before, during and after the advert is run. The research provides an indicator of the effectiveness of the advert. Currently there are many ways of carrying out advertisement research, and the agency that produces the adverts will have to perform this research before commissioning the advert. In general the ‘Hellomoto’ campaign by the Motorola Company has been very successful and it has signalled the way the company has been improving in sales since the start of that campaign.

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