Orange Envelopes | Small Business Optimized Marketing > By Design

I came up with a short list of things I would never consider buying:

• a $30,000 Timex watch
• a $287,000 Chevrolet
• a $1200 Bic ballpoint pen
• and, oh yeah, a $2000 Motorola phone

There are a number of reasons – other than a profound shortage of bound stacks of crisp $100's – that I would never consider these purchases, but central to my absence of longing is the lack of consistency and authenticity to each brand's promise that each has spent decades cultivating.

Note that the prices quoted would not be out of line if the brands listed for each product were:

• Patek Philippe
• Bentley
• Montblanc
• … sorry, I can't think of any provider who could justify a $2000 mobile phone

In each of these latter cases, the prices are entirely reasonable for the brand. Each company has spent their lifetime specializing in the design and production of highly crafted and unique products with commensurate price tags.

These brands could offer "entry level" products that carry the cachet of their upscale brethren (and many luxury brands do), but the reverse is rarely true.

Let's take a look at Motorola's $2000 mobile phone offering, the Aura.

What could possibly make a phone worth so much? Well, according to their promotional materials, the Aura was inspired by luxury watches, so the phone contains:

• Three tungsten-carbon-carbide-coated main gears
• Swiss made main bearing
• Protective PVD coating and mirror polish finish
• 130 precision ball bearings
• Scratch-resistant, 62-carat, grade 1 sapphire crystal display
• Chemically etched textures and patterns

Now I can appreciate the manufacturing expertise and component quality that went into the production of the Aura. However, this is still a mobile phone produced by the same company whose phones are given away for free by the mobile carriers in return for a one-year contract commitment.

There is simply no logical reason why a typical consumer familiar with Motorola would extend them the sanction for a $2000 phone. Not when Motorola's popular RAZR line still sells for around $200.

Motorola will likely pay for their brand inconsistency with shelves of beautifully crafted Auras unable to find an owner willing to extend luxury status to a familiar, proletarian mass marketer.

The lesson here is that companies, like Motorola, who fail to integrate design thinking into their strategic planning will chase vanity projects that stray from their corporate strengths, diminish their corporate reputation and weaken their brand.