In the cutthroat world of selling cell phones, Motorola Inc.’s secret weapon is David Pinsky.
The 34-year-old, press-the-flesh director of entertainment marketing arrived in Hollywood barely a year ago and already has given away more than 400 Motorola cell phones, 300 two-way pagers and 200 two-way radios to some of Tinseltown’s most famous actors and actresses who are more than happy to slip the pricey gizmos into their pockets.
It sounds like a dream job: hobnob with movie stars, invite them to your penthouse office and give them payola in hope they will use the wireless gadgets in very public places.
For Motorola, it’s a win-win situation. Its latest products are showcased by very trendy, famous people, adding a certain panache to its phones. And it gets free exposure in hopes that status-conscious consumers will see a celeb using the latest Motorola cell phone and think, “If Matt Damon is using that phone, it must be cool.”
Motorola has taken this extra marketing step because it is locked in a heated battle with competitors Nokia Corp. and Ericsson. Motorola, which has reinvented itself over the years from a television manufacturer to a wireless communications and semiconductor firm, used to be the world’s clear leader in mobile phone sales. But the Chicago-area company has fallen into second place behind Nokia of Finland, and is staying just ahead of No. 3 Ericsson of Sweden.
And even though Motorola last week reported a 91 percent rise in its second-quarter operating profits, its personal communications unit, which includes wireless phones, saw its profits increase by only 5.8 percent. In an effort to improve those numbers, Motorola has been trying to come up with innovative ways to get its name and products in front of the American public and that’s where Pinsky comes in.
A longtime Motorola employee (he has worked in the P.R. department for 11 years), the Illinois native has been fascinated with Hollywood since he started reading People magazine at age 13. He struck upon the idea of opening a one-man marketing office in West Hollywood that does nothing but give away wireless gadgets to prominent people in the entertainment industry.
As frivolous as the idea seemed, Motorola executives liked it. They put together a multimillion-dollar budget (no one is saying exactly how much), and moved Pinsky last summer from the heartland to Hollywood.
Within days, he had found a penthouse office on Sunset Boulevard, where he has a sweeping view of the Hollywood Hills. His 1,100-square-foot space is decorated in the latest trendy style which means it looks like something out of 1940, complete with an old metal desk, credenza, bookshelf and faux-leopardskin chairs.
The avant-garde look is meant to impress the Hollywood crowd as they drop by for free phones and wireless advice. “For years, I could see there was an opportunity that existed here to do some really strong promotion,” said Pinsky, who has re-created himself since his arrival by dying his brown hair blond and buying a brand-new BMW M3 convertible. “This is a town that is about communication. You can’t go five feet without seeing someone with a cell phone. Giving away phones is a natural marriage between Hollywood and Motorola.”
Competitors in the game, too
It is a symbiotic relationship that hasn’t eluded other cell phone companies, either. Nokia recently partnered with actress Jennifer Love Hewitt. The actress will be featured in a print, outdoor and magazine campaign set to begin soon. The company also slips cell phones into those celebrity VIP bags at the Grammys and the Emmys. But the company doesn’t have an office in Los Angeles where employees give away phones, a company spokeswoman said. Neither does Ericsson.
Product giveaways are nothing new in Hollywood. It has been going on since movie cameras appeared in the early 1900s, said Eric Dahlquist Sr., president of the Entertainment Resources and Marketing Association, a trade group of studios, product placement companies and advertisers.
“It is an ever-increasing component of marketing,” said Dahlquist, a Hollywood product-placement specialist. “It is all part of the emergence of the celebrity market.”
Even as far back as the 1930s and 1940s, actors were being asked to pump up certain products by using them. Humphrey Bogart could be seen wearing the latest Gruen timepiece, a gift from the watch manufacturer.
Most product placement is done by asking film directors to slip a certain product in front of the camera. But an award-winning actor is still one of the best billboards money can buy. The trick is to land the highest-profile people.
“This town is all about relationships, and you have to be here if you want to do what we are doing,” said Pinsky, who has shed his traditional suit for hip Hollywood threads, such as a white ruffled shirt he purchased at a vintage clothing store and a pair of jeans.
Pinsky’s work day reads like a page out of a movie magazine: go to a film screening, meet an actor or two, have lunch with an agent, attend an evening party. Recently, his day began with a screening for “The Nutty Professor 2.” In the afternoon he met with Matt Damon at the actor’s office 10 minutes away to drop off some free cell phones and equipment.
Pinsky cozies up to all these celebrities by schmoozing, but not fawning. He’s good at it. He doesn’t mind going up to complete strangers and introducing himself. Recently he saw Shannon Doherty at a car wash and struck up a conversation. Now she’s got a two-way pager, a cell phone and some two-way radios.
While Pinsky attends plenty of glitzy events, a lot of his business is done by referral; one actress shows her phone to another, and before you know it she’s on the horn to Pinsky.
Motorola gave out wireless phones to all the best actor and actress nominees at this year’s Academy Awards. Annette Bening was one of them. The next day her husband, Warren Beatty, was calling Pinsky for a phone.
“My contacts come through a variety of ways. A lot of it comes through our public relations agency, PMK, which handles a lot of celebrity clients in town like Tom Cruise and Jodie Foster,” Pinsky said. “A lot of it is word of mouth. David Schwimmer heard about our phones through Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Hecht. I met Ellen at the taping of one of Ellen’s shows. Anne Hecht went off to make a movie with David Schwimmer and told him about the phones. Sometimes you feel it’s like six degrees of separation.”
To get more out of its giveaway campaign, Motorola is printing the names of celebrity users on a promotional card for the company’s new V series wireless phone, a small device the size of two packs of gum.
But does this marketing ploy boost sales? Product placement experts say the effectiveness of this kind of advertising is hard to measure. But it comes at the fraction of the cost of placing a 30-second ad on prime-time TV. It also can change your image.
Said Pinsky: “Motorola knows it’s reaching an audience it might not reach and creating a hipness and funkiness it might not have had.”
