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1. MVentur memo: Q1 2013
Google’s 2 Step Strategy for Motorola
In 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

2. 1) Focus on the Basics
Doing 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 Beachheads
Find 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

3. 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 Brown
Lead Consultant, MVentur

4. About MVentur
MVentur is the world’s first youth mobile consultancy.
We have 2 roles:
1) Advisor to our clients
We 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 industry
We promote progressive marketing ideas that help mobile companies go
beyond advertising. Read more about our youth mobile opinion pieces.
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