The man behind the brand "Honda" & now "Motorola".

He shocked the European Marketing community when he announced that he is leaving Honda & that his new role in Motorola is a real change in pace. He gets up at 4.30 a.m. in the morning & that is where all similarities come to an end between him & a business magazine journalist/interviewer. Energetic is the beginning if it comes to describe Thompson. The marketing man feted for bringing Japanese car-maker Honda into spot-light is a quick talking & sharp thinking system. In his 11 years of existence with Honda he was nominated as marketer of the year a several times. The last figures that can be recalled by the time he was about to leave Honda is that the quarterly report said earnings were up by 133% to 219.5 billion Yen.

First, Fast & Fantastic
The mobile phone market is fast, fashionable but above all fickle. And I think that all of us do agree t this point. There have been instances when we have seen groaning at ourselves, at the fact that “wish I would have a waited for some more days, I would have always had a better model than the one I have now….”.
Truly stated. Simon Thompson explains that pulling emotional strings is the way to keep customers loyal. What do you say? ….


Name: Simon Thompson
Age: 39
Education: Computer Science Degree, Leicester University
Career: 1992—Area Sales Manager, Unipart International
1992—positions in Glasgow, Tokyo, Los Angeles, working on pan-European programmes & eventually marketing director for Honda (UK);
2006—European Marketing Director, Motorola.

Well the things mentioned here are extracts of an interview of Simon Thompson, taken by Morag Cuddeford Jones.

…customer relationship with mobile brands is all about telephony technology…

Simon Thompson said that Motorola is close to defining the first emotional brand in the mobile phone category. Without handsets operators can do nothing & vice-versa. Most of the brands in the market today have been technology inside-out company. People don’t get excited about the airtime rather they are excited about the product. People say it’s all about experience. It should be a combination of beauty with brains that would no doubt bring the customers close to the brand.

“To be associated with fashion brands is something which is very natural for us. If you take another brand that’s is not inherently fashionable then it doesn’t seem to be a natural fit & I don’t believe that it works as well.” –Simon Thompson. But one should always take care of. The fashion brand attachment can be overdone. The last agreement of Motorola that I can recall of is the one with Dolce & Gabbana, which is a long-term deal rather. No doubt that others will soon be following the strategy soon. But it’s always a risk in such cases. For example the UK market perceives it to be very flashy or ornamented rather but again in Spain, Dubai, South Africa & Italy, it is considered fashionable & is very much accepted.

We studied globalization & cultural identity & I have also done a presentation on it. So while analysing this article, I tend to recollect some of those points that had been discussed in prior classes.
This question from MC Jones to Thompson reflects cultural diversity in geographical distribution & that marketing strategies have to be always vital in case of geographical segmentation. The question:

MCJ: “You are a part of an American company, operating in Europe. The latter is arguably more mature territory in terms of mobile use. How does this impact the brand?”

ST: “As an organisation Motorola understands that Europe is where it happens in terms of the design and & technology. I would say that Motorola is mature enough to understand that markets are different at different places. For example if it’s about winning the Asian market then it’s all about distribution. There are some American cultural references that aren’t applicable in all market. The MOTO PEBL ad warning against submerging in water [the ad showing that the phone used as a stone to skim across oceans] may be changed soon in the European market, but believe me it was a good job that we included it in North America. We are in the middle of having a discussion about how culturally relevant we are.”

Thompson has something to confide to all young marketers out there. He says that marketers do not have to be on board. He says that he has worked at al level of organisation & if one has really compelling reason to get something done & one can engage people for that, he is bound to get what he wants sooner or later.

Speaking on the Motorola Cult
I used to work for a more philosophical, steady paced, long-term business. Motorola’s mantra is first, fast & fantastic. The great thing is that anything can happen today. The flip side is that anything can stop today. If you could wrap the long term thinking of Honda into the fantastic execution of Motorola, you would have an awesome business. It’s great particularly here where you can make a mistake & it’s forgotten about in a couple of months, such is the pace of change in the mobile market. It encourages risk because the cot of binning a project is less. It helps keep you competitive.