Luxury phone gets style-setting kick off

To launch Motorola’s new MOTORAZR2 V8 Luxury Edition phone and re-establish the company’s position as Australia’s ‘must-have’ designer mobile phone brand, Howorth utlised global brand ambassador, David Beckham, and a four pronged media strategy.

The campaign quadrupled target expectations:

• A whopping reach of over 34 million Australians was achieved within just two weeks
• More than 100 media hits across TV, radio, online and print
• A complete sell-through of stock within two months!

Having been allocated just one hour of the star’s time, Howorth’s strategy maximised the star’s appeal, but controlled access and messaging around the celebrity. This helped ensure positive pick-up around the product.

Campaign outline
Key steps:

• Pre-launch buzz created through media partnerships with Australia’s top radio, print and TV media including Nova, mX and The Morning Show
• An exclusive Sydney high-octane VIP meet-and-greet
• Exclusive press conference
• National media alerted via a digital news release to ensure widespread coverage.

The campaign was delivered within a three-month timeframe and on budget, yet sustained buzz for months following. The coverage from the launch and MOTRAZR 2 V8 Lux still generated talk and coverage up to one year later.

Beckham, an international football star and world-leading style icon, was in Australia to play for his team, LA Galaxy FC.

Stephen Amiet, National Marketing Manager, Motorola Mobile Devices, said:

“Howorth delivered an awesome campaign and the results are an amazing testament to the creativity, professionalism and superior organisational skills of the Howorth team.

“Our international guests, friends at Optus and attending media commented that it was one of the smoothest product launches they have ever attended.

“We could not have been happier, especially in relation to the way the positive coverage and reviews of the V8 Lux phone led to sell through of the product at retail.

“It was great to see the story covered in the evening news on every commercial TV station and on the front page of MX that afternoon. We wanted to stop traffic…and George St was mayhem!”