This past fall Motorola shook up its marketing department and brought in a new CMO, Casey Keller.

Adage did a spread on him in May, stating:

Motorola is shifting its marketing strategy away from its mobile devices such as the Razr or Pebl to one more squarely focused on the consumer. Casey Keller…said Motorola believes the mobile-phone market has evolved into one where consumers have higher expectations about their products, whether they are talking, listening to music, taking pictures or surfing the web.

“This is a change in our marketing and branding approach and ultimately in our portfolio-development approach,” Mr. Keller said.  “We’re not just about form factors, colors, designs,” he said.  “We are moving toward what we would call experiences — how are people behaving with our products, what do we expect our products to do for them?  What experience are we delivering to them?”

Bravo, Mr. Keller.

At the same time of his announcement, Mr. Keller shook up his agency roster.  I can’t get a clear picture of who is doing what, but I’m fairly certain he has given Cutwater, a new SF agency started by former TBWA\Chiat\Day creative executive Chuck McBride, North American responsibilities.

The first experiential work I have seen come out of Cutwater on behalf of Motorola is for the Motorokr S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones:

The product name may be mind-numbing, but the work is great.  The promotion, called Wirebreakers, was just picked by the blogger gurus at IF!  The authors noted…

…how the product is being pushed through the market on YouTube without watchers even noticing.  The promo features…a group of Urbanite break dancers that are tired of being restricted by their pods. 

Says the leader of Wirebreakers: “Everybody is too tied up to their music.  They can’t move; they can’t dance.”

I love it!  I hope to God a planner came up with that line used as a quote by the “leader”.  That is the strategy.  Right there in the ad.

Back to the work.  It is getting a lot of hits on YouTube, especially this one:

My only critique of Cutwater is that, so far, they have taken a safe approach to executing an “experiential” campaign for the Motorokr S9. 

1. Tap into the culture of your target audience
2. Leverage that culture by creating a traditional, passive set of messages
3. Build a microsite to house your creative - call it “interactive”
4. Place the product in the lower right-hand corner so people can “learn more”
5. Post that content on YouTube for a “viral” effect

I kid, of course.  I’m sure the guys at Cutwater wanted to go a different route.  I applaud them for getting a client the size of Motorola to take such a bold creative leap: downplaying the product to emphasize the experience. 

What the agency needs to do now is follow up this creative work with consumer-generated media opportunities.  This campaign has legs, let it run, baby.

What do I mean?  Well, after searching for other Wirebreakers work on YouTube, of which Cutwater posted about 10, I came across this request from Wolfsnigs.  With an outrageous Wisconsin accent, he asks the Wirebreakers to come to the Chicago Pier on August 12th for a Chicagoland YouTube meetup:

This is a huge chance to extend the reach of the Wirebreakers.  From digital to real-world.  From advertising to PR.  From marketing 1.0 to marketing 2.0  From client-driven content to customer-driven content. 

Cutwater, my recommendation is you get your Wirebreakers cast to the Pier on August 12.  Extending this campaign and let in morph into something much larger.  Please, as one who can’t move, can’t dance, I beg you.