Recent reports stated that the Motorola branding is vanishing. That still holds true, but that doesn’t mean that Motorola Mobility themselves are going anywhere, or that Lenovo is ‘eating’ them. Motorola made a blog post to add some clarity to these issues that was missing in most of the reports. Rather than stating that Motorola branding was going to disappear entirely, they stated that it will “become less central” in marketing efforts, with the focus shifting to the Moto and Vibe brands for future product lines. To sum it up succinctly, they stated, “As a wholly owned subsidiary, we remain the engineering, design and manufacturing engine for all of the Mobile Business Group’s smartphones and wearables. Motorola’s engineering heritage is hugely important to this effort, and that isn’t going to change.”
You may be wondering at this point what the reasoning behind this change is. The “Motorola Moto” branding of the past may have been a mouthful, but that’s not the only reason, or even the main reason. According to Motorola’s blog post, “”Moto” is synonymous with Motorola, and it conveys the Motorola brand to consumers in a contemporary and engaging way. That wasn’t the only thing that evolved — the iconic batwing was static blue or red for many years, and we made it fun and colorful. That symbol, which has come to represent the “Moto” brand, continues to play a prominent role, and will remain on our products and in our marketing.” They claim that this is part of a move to take a more holistic approach to branding and marketing.
Worthy of note is the fact that Motorola branding won’t be dying off entirely. Motorola made this known in their post, stating that, “Although it will not be the focus of our marketing, it will continue to be used on packaging and elsewhere, so as to ensure that the rich history and association is never lost. The legacy and the goodwill associated with the Motorola brand will also live on through our licensees… This latest move is all about where we focus our brand marketing efforts in the future. That will be on our two hero smartphone brands: Moto and Vibe, with the Lenovo corporate brand tying all of our consumer and commercial products together more holistically.” There you have it folks, Motorola has explained their logic here as taking a more holistic, perhaps more iconic approach to branding by clearing out the clutter and leaving smartphone consumers with just two names to associate with theirs and Lenovo’s brands; Moto and Vibe.