Super Motorica. Innovations that change how we think about human abilities

MOTORICA is a high-tech Russian company concerned with arm prosthetics for children and adults, which won the Brand Heroes contest organised by Mildberry and Skolkovo. The contest was intended for socially significant projects that would benefit humanity, society, or the entire planet. The main prize was a full brand strategy and visual identity that Mildberry created especially for the winner. Technology cannot exist and evolve outside of society. This is why branding tools can help decrease the distance between innovations and people and accelerate positive changes by pushing the quality of corporate communications and public awareness to the next level.

Innovations for conservative
industries and society

Motorica works at the intersection of medicine and robotics, researching and developing technology in the field of prosthetics. The goal is to create a unified functional subscription ecosystem which would accompany the person throughout their life, at any age, at every stage of getting and using a prosthetic, and improve their quality of life in general.

 

The products and services of Motorica bear more resemblance to breakthrough innovations, and are far from the scary medical images that evoke pity. The company does not use the word ‘patient’ to describe its clients, preferring the term ‘user’ instead. Complicated issues are addressed without any hang-ups, and ways are found to help everyone deal with their burden of circumstances. The global objective of Motorica for the next five years is to provide up to 65,000 users a year with their prosthetics and enter the markets of Europe and Asia.

 

Motorica works with children and adults, cooperates with government institutions, private prosthetic companies and individual experts, raises capital in the industry, engages sponsors and participates in charity projects. The vast scope of the target population, market players, and markets poses a challenge to the processes of growth and evolution for both the company and industry on the whole. This is especially true for such a complicated industry as the manufacture of prosthetics.

 

Creating innovations and a desire to make the world a better place has to face a complicated reality and the attitude to the problem in society. The prosthetics industry in Russia is extremely conservative, and the market suffers from too much regulation at all levels and segments. Meanwhile, the general public views the problem as something shameful, even though it is for children. Many people do not know about the options available to them, or where to ask for help. The majority of those who are faced with the problem experience not only physical, but also social limitations, realising that life will no longer be the same, that some opportunities have been lost forever, and that new ones are unlikely to appear.

Designing brand strategy for motorica

“We can change the world only if we think outside the box. Only then will we see that limitations can offer new opportunities” — says Alexei Poggenpohl, Director for Strategic Planning at Mildberry.

This is how we determined the key challenges for Motorica, which later became the point of departure for their brand strategy and visual identity:

 

— Change the public image of the industry and the issue by shifting the focus from a medical problem to support and technology

 

— Make the process of obtaining a prosthetic transparent and clear, and explain how a person with a prosthetic can adapt to a new life

 

— Inform people that there are high-tech prosthetics available in Russia

 

While working on the brand platform, the Mildberry team had to look for ideas and concepts that would unite the wide range of Motorica products and services and be relevant to a large number of audiences, from kids and their parents to investors and government agencies. We also had to take into account the fact that the company wanted to enter the global market.

Freedom of interaction with the surrounding world, full of super-opportunities, where there is no place for insecurities and limitations

The industry of prosthetics is used to the sterile language of medicine and the promise of restoring lost abilities. However, global consumer trends demonstrate the importance of a simple human approach and goodwill in communication, including in the medical sphere. People who require prosthetics dream not only about having their lost abilities restored, but about living a normal life without physical or emotional limitations.

 

In the new brand strategy of Motorica, we placed the focus on freedom of interaction with the surrounding world, full of super-opportunities, where there is no place for insecurities and limitations. The word ‘super’, on the one hand, expresses emotional approval, and, on the other hand, is a marker of the superlative degree, and therefore a key element of the brand’s essence. This solution allowed us to unite different target populations and concepts into a single scalable system.

The company got a new symbol, the letter M, symbolising the super degree of effort and opportunities. It is a symbol of the responsibility that the Motorica team takes upon itself by being a guide and assistant for children and adults, a reliable manufacturer and consultant for prosthetic companies, and a super hi-tech partner for investors.

 

“We wanted to make an identity that would allow us to manage the image and communication of Motorica for different target groups, while still reflecting the company’s single DNA. It is the identity of a superhuman company for people who want to go beyond their abilities. We needed a super-identity, diverse yet integrated, for which there are no rules, which is difficult to fit into the existing frames of design,” says Igor Mospanov, Creative Director at Mildberry.

Motorica is more than an inspiring success story. It is a company that is not afraid to bring change to the field, society, humanity. And to do that, they have a super team of developers, super technology of the future, super ambassadors, and, of course, super kids, who can now live a full life and build a better future for everyone!