With HTC’s recent trolling of the Galaxy S4 launch event — not to mention new features with brash names like “BoomSound” and “UltraPixel” — it’s seemed that the company’s been moving away from the “quietly brilliant” tagline it adopted back in 2009.
Now newly-appointed HTC CMO Benjamin Ho has confirmed that the manufacturer will be dropping the “quietly brilliant” slogan as it looks to adopt a bolder marketing strategy. Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Ho said “we have a lot of innovations but we haven’t been loud enough.” He added that HTC would increase its digital marketing budget by 250 percent this year, and boost its “traditional media” marketing spending by 100 percent.
Ho also confirmed that camera component shortages had been behind the delayed HTC One launch, though this, he claimed, was due to its custom design rather than HTC no longer being seen as a tier-one OEM.
2013 will be a make or break year for HTC, as it attempts to reverse a downward trend in its financial performance brought on by increased competition from Samsung and Apple. The company’s hopes rest on the new HTC One handset, and CEO Peter Chou is even reported to have said he’ll step down if the phone isn’t a success. Early indications, including our own first-hand experience with the device, suggest the new One is indeed an impressive smartphone, but HTC will have to back this up with smart marketing if it’s to stage a turnaround.
The HTC One will become available this week in the UK, Germany and Taiwan ahead of a broader international launch in April. For more on the phone, check out our full review.
Source: Wall Street Journal