It’s the early 2000s, and you’re in high school, holding your new Motorola Razr V3. It’s hot pink, and besides the fact that Paris Hilton was sporting the same device, you’re gushing to your friends about the cool new ringtones and selfies you’re about to take. Your phone rings, and when you’re done talking to your mom, you flip the phone shut with a satisfying snap.
Off the Record is a weekly column written by Android Central's editor-in-chief. The column looks to expand and go in-depth on topics in the Android space without any limitations.
Imagine that same concept, except it’s now 2024, and the only thing I can think about is Motorola’s incredibly strategic marketing approach for the Motorola Razr Plus 2024. It has convinced me that the company knows exactly how to grab the heartstrings of nostalgic millennials like me while also creating a vintage feel and interest for an up-and-coming form factor for those in their early 20s.
I would even argue that because of this strong marketing and the actual changes the company has made to the phone, it could potentially be the best flip phone of the year and one of the best-selling foldable devices.
More recently, I’ve closely been watching multiple ads pop up for the phone on my TikTok feed, with similar ads cross-promoted on Instagram Reels.
What caught my attention was how nostalgic and down-to-earth so many of these ads were. They still had high production value, but most ads showcased times we spent hanging out with friends. One ad (below) showed someone doing a Get Ready With Me video, talking about going to a Y2K-themed party and taking their Razr Plus phone with them.
@danaarose ♬ original sound - Dana Rose
While many of these ads showcased millennials talking about the phone, many also targeted Gen Z.
It’s not every day that you come across a phone brand that was once incredibly popular, fell short of proper direction and strategy, and now is one that threatens some top-performing companies.
A familiar face, form factor, and “saving vintage”
Right off the bat, let’s talk about Paris Hilton. Whether you are a fan or not, she’s an icon, and Motorola was brilliant in using her as the face of the brand.
The company decided to make 2024 feel like 2006 again when it released a hot pink version of the phone. More importantly, having Hilton be the person who shows off the smartphone version of the original Razr—now “that’s hot.”
Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's worldwide device tracker, agrees that Hilton “helped popularize the Razr back in the late 2000s, and having her reprise that role is a nice throwback.”
Of course, Motorola isn’t the only company to use a celebrity as the face of its brand. Samsung has done so, too, by using Sydney Sweeney during the launch of the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Flip 6. However, in the case of Sweeny, she captures a very specific younger audience, and perhaps it doesn’t go beyond that.
Meanwhile, Anshel Sag, a senior analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, says that using Hilton “allows Motorola to reach a fairly broad audience that looks to a popular pop-culture figure that is multi-generational.”
We know foldable phones are not a new concept and were introduced many years ago, but the resurgence of clamshell flip phones is an indication of companies taking something older and refreshing it. Where Motorola has gone beyond Samsung is readjusting its marketing to also fit a younger demographic who might feel the foldable form factor to be “vintage,” and cool.
Like with any product, we’re noticing younger generations interested in products that were once popular, and as Vogue nicely put it, “Paris is saving vintage” 20 years later.
“I have so many memories of my Razr. Taking selfies with my friends, using it like a fashion accessory—I would clip it on my low-rise jeans and show it off, it’d always have crystals on it. I also loved prank calling people on it or using it like a prop and walking through crowds pretending to be talking on it,” Hilton tells Vogue.
The Razr Plus 2024 not only looks vintage AND nostalgic at the same time, it plays into both those emotions. But beyond that, its camera has a photobooth feature and also sports a 2x telephoto camera for portrait images instead of an ultrawide sensor, which many would find strange, especially for a flip phone.
@MotorolaUS Step into your own photo booth with the new motorola razr.
♬ Promoted Music - MotorolaUS
Ubrani thinks that this fits well with Gen Z and their needs “as they tend to prioritize selfies over landscapes,” which ironically was also something I loved to prioritize in my early 20s.
Apart from that, the new phone has a larger more functional cover screen, bigger main display with a higher refresh rate, and faster charging speeds than the Flip. The company also uses vegan leather instead of glass on the back to help it stand out even more against phones with traditional glass backs.
The phone is unique enough that even iPhone users have been taking an interest in it. As one user named CarelessPangolin2890 writes in a Reddit post, “I’m an iPhone user deep in the ecosystem, but the Razr+ 2024 is really calling me!”
Another user, Unwitched, writes “I’m on the same boat! My boyfriend and I are both iPhone users, since the 1st generation for me and the 4th or 5th for him, and we decided we wanted to switch to this phone when we saw a commercial for it a few months ago.
“[To be honest] we’re just taking the plunge and going for it. I haven’t been excited for the latest iPhone for several years now and I’ve grown bored.”
It wasn’t an easy road, and here’s why I’m rooting for the underdog
The fact is that Motorola took a while to develop its new and improved foldable strategy, particularly after taking some time off from the U.S. to essentially find itself.
Motorola has always been a pioneer in creating fun and colorful phones in a time when blocks and colorlessness were the norm. It was on stage with the likes of Nokia, LG, Samsung, and Blackberry, but unlike its peers, Motorola wanted to be different and really stand out and did so by releasing the thinnest flip phone at the time.
But it’s experienced many ups and downs, going from being a popular brand to one that struggled to compete seriously in the smartphone market with seemingly no clear strategy, particularly regarding foldable phones.
Android Central’s Managing Editor, Derrek Lee, wrote a scathing article in 2021 about how the company had not met expectations in a very competitive landscape.
He wrote, “While I respect Motorola’s hustle to make a phone for everyone, I can’t help being disappointed every time the company announces a new smartphone for the U.S. market.,” adding that at the time, Motorola just seemed like it was “doing the bare minimum when it comes to the mobile industry.”
The company showed off its 2021 lineup, and “absolutely none of the devices look remotely interesting.”
But perhaps it was losing LG in the smartphone market and putting the spotlight on Motorola that forced the company to take a hard look in the mirror and step it up.
Ubrani says this “helped the brand succeed with a younger audience who doesn’t want the same brand as their parents or other older folks. Motorola went from a pioneer mobile phone maker to a dominant one to an underdog to potentially a leader of the counterculture as Gen Z picks up the brand.”
Sag agrees, adding that “the Razr series is the tip of that spear, and they seem to be doing the best there in terms of marketing.”
And all of this literally happened in the span of a couple of decades.
@MotorolaUS Better vibes are a tap away with the new motorola razr.
♬ Promoted Music - MotorolaUS
This brings us back to my main point about how the Razr Plus 2024, very clearly, could be the best flip phone of the year.
In his review, Lee writes that the phone has exceeded all of his expectations, that the company “seemed to address just about everything that [he] didn’t like about last year’s Razr Plus while adding some upgrades [he] didn’t expect.”
The result is a phone that we believe “sets a new standard for flip phones.”
“Of course, no one is perfect, and the Razr Plus 2024 has its quirks. But Samsung should really be taking notes for the Galaxy Z Flip lineup because Motorola is really doing something special with its 2024 Razr lineup,” Lee writes.
Samsung “should certainly feel threatened”
How awkward was it then that the day after, Lee writes in his Samsung Z Flip 6 hands-on that the phone is a “losing battle,” further pointing out that “this feels familiar, but not in a good way.”
“The Galaxy Z Flip 6 reminds me a lot of the Motorola Razr Plus 2024…but somehow, it might be a worse version of what Motorola has managed to pull off surprisingly well.”
It also didn’t help Samsung’s case when early reported numbers indicated the company achieved 910,000 foldable units pre-ordered in South Korea, much smaller than its record-shattering number in 2023. It also reported that pre-orders dropped by 10%. Meanwhile, Motorola has seen its foldable market share grow as Samsung's shrinks amid stiff competition.
Ubrani believes now is a time when Samsung “should certainly feel threatened.”
This is partly because the company’s dominance amongst foldables has been eroded by Chinese vendors in Asia/Europe and companies like Motorola in the U.S.
Though Ubrani does add that “while we don’t have data on this, there’s the possibility that Samsung’s scale has allowed it to maintain higher profits compared to Motorola, and if that’s the case, then the situation may not be as dire for Samsung as we think.”
Regardless of all of this, what brings my focus back to Motorola every year is that it listens to its audience. It understands what they want and is trying to have a cohesive brand that is creative in a world where there’s a lot of foldable competition.
I don’t think I will be a fan of foldable phones until companies are able to figure out a better material for the screen that minimizes the crease to the point where it’s non-existent. But I can strongly say that the Motorola Razr Plus 2024 is a phone I’m closely monitoring and thinking about; maybe it might be the phone that will make me love foldables.
