The reason a wireless handset becomes successful in the marketplace remains something of a mystery. Everyone knows it must depend, in part, on a winning combination of many factors-brand, price, style, features, the integration of form and function, marketing muscle, a smart match between product and market, and perhaps even authentic consumer demand, which every handset vendor would have you believe precedes every handset launch.
Add an ephemeral element that every handset vendor must be considering in the wake of an unprecedented sales run-50 million units shipped, according to Motorola Inc.-by the Razr handset, the industry’s first mega-hit wireless phone: could the Razr’s success in part have anything to do with its name? And, of course, if so, what lessons can be drawn from that connection?
Talk about a mystery. The Razr moniker-with Motorola’s now characteristically dropped vowel-indeed succinctly describes the phone’s style, deemed to be an “iconic” form factor for the slim, clamshell designs now sweeping the market. Is that enough to enable consumers to remember what they’re looking for among the profusion of retail offerings of mobile phones, most of which are routinely referred to by a vexing combination of letters and numbers useful for business-to-business dealings, but largely meaningless to consumers?
One scrap of data suggests that once a handset has hit a sweet spot for sales, a recognizable name helps cement a connection for consumers when they enter the retail environment, leading them to ask for it, whether or not they ultimately buy it. Most handset vendors would consider that simple advantage a boon to their business.
“When we surveyed Razr shoppers, 94 percent of them said they were aware of the Razr before they went into a store to begin the shopping process,” said Miro Kazakoff, a senior associate at Compete Inc., a Boston-based market research firm that measures “consumer interest,” rather than sales, primarily in the United States. Compete uses an online sampling methodology, supplemented by consumer surveys. The firm currently is conducting a study on how consumers learn about specific handsets; stay tuned, the usual suspects-advertising and word of mouth, or “buzz”-may be implicated.
Of course, simply linking two attributes doesn’t necessarily amount to cause and effect. So perhaps it helps to examine how Motorola came to name its best-selling handset and, by extension, the Razr’s ensuing family of handsets, which have seen variable rates of success.
“With the birth of Razr, which was an amazing design, we wanted to differentiate it out there in the world of mobile phones,” said Leslie Dance, vice president for global marketing and communications at Motorola. “It was an internal name we were calling it and it just made sense to bring it to market under that name because it was almost a descriptor of the design, of the product itself. Obviously it stands out and helps us build our brand. And consumers remember it.
“When we looked at our phone designs [slated] to come out in the future, we looked at the ones we thought embodied the philosophy that design is an important part of our product and we picked out the phones that we thought deserved to have that four-letter, differentiated name that would stand out and be memorable.”
That roster included now-familiar models such as the Slvr, the Pebl, and the Rokr.
Dance pointed out that Motorola still uses alpha-numeric names for most models, including the Razr, because when it comes to business-to-business dealings with supply chains, distribution and service centers, alpha-numeric names serve a function. Dance said, “It’s a Razr `V3,’ [technically]. But that’s not something we market to consumers.”
So has the name-game lent success to successors such as Slvr, Pebl and Rokr?
“I think consumers see these four-letter names and think of Motorola,” Dance said. “Internally, we’ve even joked about our stable of four-letter words. Obviously, it shows that the phone is distinguished in some way. It gives people something to come and ask for by name. Slvr is doing well, as is Pebl. Rokr, being an iconic music experience, leads to there being more than one Rokr. Slvr is looking like another hit, just like Razr.”
Can we expect more-of-the-same names for future handset releases? Dance draws the curtain back just enough to reveal the stage lights, if not the performers.
“Yes, we have a line-up of new phones through next year that will get four-letter names,” Dance said. “We look at our designs and feel confident enough that they’ll impact the market in a significant way and the name goes along with that. It was intentional. We didn’t just look back and say, `Well that worked, let’s do it again.’ There’s a strategy behind it.”
Iain Gillott, principal at Austin-based iGillottResearch Inc., proffered his views of the name game.
“Let’s say your thesis is true, for the sake of argument,” said Gillott, laughing. “Then what happened to the Rokr and the Pebl? Slvr sure looks pretty good. Look, it’s probably true that if someone likes the phone, a name makes it easier to remember. Having said that, there’ve been some very successful Nokia models over the years and there have been some pretty miserable Nokia designs over the years and the only thing that distinguished them was one digit in their [alpha-numeric] names. On the other hand, if you have a cute name and a bad design, the name isn’t going to give you the lift you need. In fact, in that case, a name could work against you.”
People still buy phones based on price, style and design, user interface and an underlying sense of appeal-“Do they like it?”-as well as preferences for and prejudices against certain brands. “We’ve seen this in our focus groups,” Gillott said. “People fall into camps by brand. Also, design continues to matter. In a study of tweens we found that the girls picked the pink phones and the boys picked LG [Electronics Co. Ltd.’s] VX9800, because it was gadgety and James Bond-y.
“Now, of course, LG’s VX9800 has become the `V,’ so they’re all doing it,” Gillott said. “I can see we’re heading for a trend here. Vendors may think that they’ll sell more if they give their handsets trendy little names, or sophisticated names that supposedly capture the design.”
Back to the Razr, Gillott agreed that the name embodies the style and therefore was a close fit and, in retrospect, works well. But names don’t always make the desired connection, he said.
“You wouldn’t believe the number of people I meet who own a Razr that couldn’t put that relationship together, that had to have it explained to them,” Gillott said, laughing. “I mean, you’ve got to know that `thin is in,’ all that stuff, right? But I had someone tell me they named it the Razr because it looks like an electric razor. So the naming thing can cut many ways.”
So what’s the practical upshot for Motorola, which has had a mega-hit success in the name game-the Razr, a possible successor in the Slvr-and a few near misses-the Rokr and Pebl?
“Now we’re on dangerous ground!” Gillott said. “Let me answer that this way: What worries me about Motorola is what has always worried me about them. Do you remember their Star-Tac model? For the time, a fabulous phone. They took that thing, painted it every color under the sun, and failed to innovate beyond it to have another hit. I’d say their next hit actually was the Razr. If you look at the Razr now, they’re milking it for every cent they can by turning it out in different colors. Their newer designs such as the Pebl, the Rokr are not that successful.
“My fear is that the Razr is not the start of a new design trend at Motorola. It may be a flash in the pan. Whereas LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics [Co. Ltd.] have a pretty good range of design in their portfolios and they’ve been tweaking their designs all these years, they’re heading in the right direction. Nokia, I think, is going the other way [by introducing clamshell-style phones late to market.] Motorola seems to be hit or miss. There are no design themes. That’s what scares me. The `Q’ could be the next big hit for them. I hope it is. But I’m not sure that there was a meeting that said, `Let’s focus our energy on a new design theme and name the first one the Razr.”‘
