Simple communication strategies for a complicated world.
November 10th, 2009

Motorola Droid + Foursquare = Social Media Branding

A strong brand pays attention to details. A smart brand connects with the connectors in memorable ways that may not be readily quantifiable. A savvy brand knows that there are many factors involved in making something a hit or miss. Motorola is all of these and more when it comes to Droid.

On Android day, Cake Group put together an amazing event for Motorola’s Droid release. Their efforts went beyond the day of with connecting with various influencers beforehand to seed articles after the fact.

The branding brilliance comes into play with the attention to details. Customized shortened urls were created just for the event:

Press Release for Droid: http://bit.ly/MotoDroid
Link to Droid specs/product info: http://bit.ly/MotorolaDroid
Pictures from last night: http://bit.ly/MotoLaunchParty

The invitation was elegant, simple and overall top-notch:

What really set them apart was Motorola’s use of Foursquare in a relevant and timely way:

Motorola Foursquare

If that wasn’t enough, the piece that pulled it all together was the fact that the launch party took place in Morimoto, the famous Japanese restaurant. MoriMOTO, MOTOrola - very slight but very intentional and very effective.

With Motorola the attention is in the details. At every turn there was a robot, or droid, to reinforce that we were there in fact for the DROID launch. By the end of the party none of the robot droids were left, as they were almost as coveted as the DROID itself. Another small detail was the DROID branded photo-booth downstairs, which came with props like a giant inflatable 90′s-era cellphone and a raygun, as well as an alien backdrop.

Attention to details doesn’t stop after the party: I have it on good authority that Cake Group also added tips to every Verizon store on DROID day (11-6-9) to clue people in to the new Motorola DROID. While Foursquare may not be completely mainstream yet one thing is for sure – the people that ARE using advanced social networking services are the ones who are buying these new mobiile computing “phones”. With the proliferation of these advanced communication devices it’s only a matter of time before everyone is using one. Until then we have companies like Motorola and Cake Group who are using branding purposefully to guide us along the way.


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October 23rd, 2009

Facebook’s New Touchscreen Interface vs. Mobile Interface

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Facebook

Facebook recently released a touchscreen optimized interface for phones such as the iPhone and android models. It’s interesting that even though Facebook is one of the most downloaded social networking iPhone apps that Facebook is still continuing to optimize the mobile web on many different fronts.

Considering they just launched their newly redesigned homepage in a more streamlined newsfeed focused way it makes me wonder if this addition is within their overall brand vision for their user interface and user experience.

One thing I DO like about the new Touch interface is the Phone section (Also notice the new notifications red icon in the upper left corner). It focuses on who you can call, as opposed to the mobile interface which focuses on all your friends and pointing out who has their phone number listed with a phone icon.

What do you think about the differences? Not enough? Too much? What other changes should be made?

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from db’s digital branding database


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


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