Motorola dupes consumers with unbranded campaign for Motoblur
Motorola has been revealed as the brand behind the creation of a fictional character who fooled people into believing that he was on a crusade to make friends.
Rob Multo, who launched a Facebook account and YouTube channel asking people to “be my friend” is part of an unbranded campaign created by Peer Group Media to promote Motorola’s new smart phones.
The name Rob Multo is actually an anagram of Motorola’s ‘Motorblur’ – the new social media functionality available on its Dext and Backflip handsets which it is launching in Australia.
Uhhhhh, It’s 2010. I’m fairly surprised that digital consumers would believe that a lonely man would buy advertising to win friends, instead of reading it as an obvious attempt at a humorous advertising campaign.
People had posted on the Facebook fan page weeks ago that they recognised Multo from other advertising campaigns.
Are these same people shocked that Ricky Martin came out?
not sure anyone was fooled by the campaign … it was bleeding obvious it was a corporate behind it.
hope moto didn’t pay much for the huge amount of facebook fans and youtube views!!
“hope moto didn’t pay much for the huge amount of facebook fans and youtube views!!”
or the bill posters and ads in the street press
Never thought I’d say bring back the Witchery girl with the jacket. This was just painful.
Lame, lame, lame!
Just had a look at the page.
It appears to have been hijacked by irate “fans” who are posting links to rival companies’ phones. Quite amusing.
As for Zammit’s comment that “People have the option to opt out” – that is the weakest justification for blatantly misleading the public I have heard for a while.
“Oh, we tricked everyone, but after they’ve been tricked, they can walk away and feel stupid”. Nice one Adam.
The only lame people are those who feel duped or who are still getting so uptight about the so-called misappropriation of social media. Facebook is not a sacred site; it’s a legitimate marketing platform. This was a simple idea, decently executed – all the more effective now that it is getting this post-reveal coverage.
Almost as good as PGs ARIA and artist of the month work for Motorola. Bravo!
It’s about as lame as copying an overseas brand page & dropping it into the Melb & Sydney markets just so that you can collect traffic.
If your going to set up a page for the purposes of your social media status in market pls make it at least somewhat a little bit original.
@ Rocky: “all the more effective now that it is getting this post-reveal coverage.”
I love how industry people think that coverage on Mumbrella renders the campaign ‘more effective’.
I wonder how many 18-35 Facebook group-joiners read this site?
Utterly average
the most satisfying bit of this for me is watching the arrogant industry types (edited for courtesy by Mumbrella) churn out their pompous snipings in the facebook comments.
delicious.
I think it was a very innovative idea….what’s with all the agro!!!!
I think that the surge of bogans and internet slowpokes onto Facebook is what is to blame for this campaign seeming innovative, when really it is something that has a rather 2006 smell to it.
I guess it’s just a reminder that, while we’re all so close to this every day, there are people that aren’t: our consumers…. let’s not forget who we’re selling to at the end of the day.
Not sure anyone was really convincingly duped by it, even in the target demo.
It was reasonably transparent – not taking away from its cringeworthy execution however.
Yuck.
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It’s a real stretch to call this an innovative campaign.
“He currently has 2,611 fans on Facebook and has had 538 views on his YouTube channel.” MEGA EXPENSIVE FAIL!