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Motorola Phones are Too KRZY for Consumers
A report from branding research firm, Strategic Name Development has found that Motorola's current problems may be, in part, due its failure to follow up on the radical naming of its RAZR handset with more innovative brand names.
The report finds that in Q3 2005, three firms, Samsung, LG and Nokia each held a 16% market share in the USA. Two of them implemented a policy of innovative naming for their handsets and saw their market shares rise to 20% by Q2 2008. Conversely, Nokia - which stuck with numeric handset identities - saw its market share drop to 9% over the same time frame.
The report says that when Motorola launched its RAZR handset, its market share jumped to 35% - but this share fell when LG and Samsung introduced phone names which were even more creative than Motorola's 4LTR vowel-omitted names.
Product names such as the KRZR suggested the phone was crazed, or that buyers would be crazy. The never-launched SCPL reminded people too much of the medical scalpel - and the RIZR, while better was launched too late to undo the damage already caused.
Their research found that among the target market, Motorola's cell phone names are no longer perceived as modern, creative, engaging, cool, original or easy to remember.
Today, LG (and Samsung) has become everything that Motorola is not. The Chocolate is felt to be seductively original, creative and engaging. The Voyager name is relevant, while the Vu is easy to remember.
In July of 2006, Ed Zander, the former CEO, referred to Samsung as "Same-sung". From the BlackJack to the easily remembered FlipShot and the modern Instinct, Samsung's phones are now anything but "Same-sung".
The report has harsh words for Nokia - which while globally the largest handset vendor - is performing poorly in the USA. Shockingly, their research found that on all 15 measures, be it for Brand Architecture System, Name Attributes or Fit to Product Attributes, Nokia scored statistically lower than Motorola, LG and Samsung by the target market.
Nokia has half-heartedly introduced names preceded by a number, such as the 8600 Luna - but it is not resonating with consumers.
The firm noted that the iPhone was introduced half-way through the study time period and was not included in their current report.
The full report (pdf file, 15 pages) can be downloaded from the Strategic Name Development website.
Posted to the site on 1st February 2009