Motorola Loses Marketing Chief
By SARA SILVER
March 6, 2008 12:50 p.m.
The chief marketing officer of Motorola Inc. has left the company, in the latest sign of turmoil at the troubled telecom-equipment maker.
Kenneth C. "Casey" Keller Jr., a longtime marketer of Heinz ketchup and Pringles chips, was brought to Motorola in October 2006, to revitalize the brand as the ultraslim RAZR cellphone lost its steam. Despite criticism that the RAZR name had lost its cachet, Mr. Keller continued to use variations of it, such as Razr2, for follow-on models.
Mr. Keller's departure comes amid turmoil at Motorola, which recently put its troubled handset business on the market. The company's new chief executive, Greg Brown, who succeeded Ed Zander at the beginning of the year, has removed the heads of technology, finance, human resources, supply chain and its largest unit, mobile devices. At the same time, Motorola is fighting a proxy battle led by activist investor Carl Icahn.
Motorola made no public announcement about Mr. Keller, who left the company on Friday. He had succeeded Geoffrey Frost, who created the popular "Hello Moto" ad campaign and died suddenly in late 2005.
Write to Sara Silver at sara.silver@wsj.com |
