MVentur memo: Q1 2013

Google’s 2 Step Strategy for MotorolaIn a recent quarterly earnings call, Google’s CEO Larry Page emphasized the need for reinventing Motorola by creating better experiences.

But reinventing the experience will take time. The company noted it had inherited a 12 to 18 month product pipeline from Motorola. While Google has a legacy of successful innovation, there are no guarantees with Motorola.

In this document, I outline my recommendations for Google in implementing a 2-step strategy for Motorola:1) Focus on the Basics: Focus on doing the common things

uncommonly well (the basics of smartphone ownership)2) Build your Beachheads: Identify and build on existing Beachheads to

co-create the user experience with young Fans

1) Focus on the BasicsDoing the Common Things Uncommonly Well

Google’s CEO Larry page talks about consumer experience as, “You shouldn’t have to worry about constantly recharging your phone. When you drop your phone, it shouldn’t go splat. Everything should be a ton faster and easier.”

If Google is to succeed, it needs to focus on the basics. Experience needs to be defined on customer, not industry, terms. Good experience is about reliable, everyday technologies not the ones that necessarily win awards.

From the customer’s point of view, experience is defined in the detail: not winning in the game of high-end technologies but getting the simple, everyday tasks right. This approach is true to Google’s legacy of building apps that don’t “wow” audiences but apps that drive mass participation through removing friction and bad experiences.

Google’s challenge is to navigate Motorola away from the manufacturer’s mindset: a mindset that aims to provide customers with a complete, fixed experience out-of-the-box supported by ad agency campaigns. The modern customer doesn’t like Motorola’s pre-installed apps and this lack of control contributes to a perception of unreliability. According to a recent Fixya survey based on 700,000 responses, the biggest issue cited by Motorola users was “preinstalled apps” (30% of all responses).

2)Build your BeachheadsFind the Fans

Creating what the head of Google+ Vic Gundotra refers to as a phone with "insanely great cameras" will not help Motorola regain customers. Motorola challenge isn’t hardware, it’s relevance.

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, Motorola needs to focus on the somebody it can become relevant to.

The most sustainable relevance is when people tell their everyday stories using your brand. 85% of brand experience happens without the brand. Technology itself becomes boring but the stories people tell with it are relevant. By removing the dominant Motorola story, Google can

focus on giving Fans better tools to tell their own story. It’s not about the phone that counts, it’s what people do with it that counts.

By bypassing the mobile operators and developing their own mobile ecosystem around a positive, reliable experience, Google can reduce the distance between the customer and Motorola but this requires the development of a Frontline. Google is already taking the first steps in creating a Frontline by opening its own retail stores. Now, the challenge is making the Frontline into a space that’s relevant to its Beachhead in the youth market.

Graham BrownLead Consultant, MVentur

About MVentur

MVentur is the world’s first youth mobile consultancy.We have 2 roles:

1) Advisor to our clientsWe oversee marketing plans, act on advisory panels and consult our clients. Find out more about our consultancy work.

2) Commercial think tank for the mobile industryWe promote progressive marketing ideas that help mobile companies go beyond advertising. Read more about our youth mobile opinion pieces.

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