It is believed that print ads rarely spark digital chatter, but Motorola’s campaign for the Moto Edge 60 Fusion did just that. The brand used a full-page newspaper ad with an optical illusion that made the paper appear curved, reflecting the phone’s design. It led to confusion offline and conversation online, with the ad quickly circulating across social media.
While most brands look to digital for scale, this one started with print and watched the internet pick it up. Meme pages, influencers on X, and over 60 million impressions later, the campaign became a case study in earned media.
In this edition of BrandWagon AdTalk, we speak with Pankaj Malani, SVP and Revenue Head at Only Much Louder (OML), the agency behind the work. He breaks down the idea, the execution, and how aligning with the product’s core feature helped the ad travel far beyond the newsprint it began on.
Q- What made you believe a print ad—a format often dismissed as dated—could drive digital chatter?
A- It really depends on the product/services’ category and the idea that’s buoying it. For a brand like Motorola with its mass appeal across demographics, every medium—especially one as widely distributed as print—still holds significant power. In this case, the goal was to make people feel the phone’s curved display without even holding it. That’s where the optical illusion ad in The Times of India came in. It created a physical experience that mirrored the product’s core proposition.
And clearly, it worked—people started sharing the ad on Instagram and X within hours, with creators and other users adding their own spin. That kind of virality from print just proves that the ‘print is dead’ discourse is obsolete. When done right, print’s contribution to a campaign can be as disruptive as any digital format.
Q- How do you balance ‘clever’ for the sake of virality versus ‘clever’ that reinforces the brand’s messaging?
A – This balance is everything. But honestly, there is no definitive answer here. We put our best creative minds to the job, trying to balance the two and we always start with the brand’s objective—what do they want to say or solve, and why does that matter to the audience?
With the Motorola campaign, the cleverness came from how we delivered that message, not just from trying to make noise. At OML, we always go for what the brand’s objective is, rather than trying to go viral. When we are able to crack that objective in a creative way, chances are it will most likely go viral. But above all, you have to be authentic, or else the audience will instantly see through the fanfare and easily call you out.
Our print ad for the Moto campaign wasn’t simply just a gimmick; it called out competition that makes similar claims. That sharp, brand-first narrative, wrapped in a creative visual, made it land even harder. If the cleverness is rooted in product truth, virality becomes a natural outcome.
Q – This campaign seems to have leaned heavily on earned media—memes, Twitter buzz, influencer takes. How did you engineer for amplification beyond paid?
You have to fully believe in the idea you’ve created, and go with it. We always say: amplification is not a substitute for a great idea. After all, it can only do so much. Paid media has its place, but the kind of buzz we saw —60M+ impressions across platforms—came from our creative idea doing the heavylifting.
We looked at meme potential, planned for relatability, and used formats that people naturally engage with. Seeding it with the right voices helped, sure—but the real boost came when creators organically riffed on it online. When that happens, you know the campaign has struck the right chord.
Q – From an execution perspective, what were the risks involved in pulling off this kind of illusion at a mass print scale?
There’s always going to be risks associated with any creative endeavour. In this case, our biggest challenge was technical feasibility. Can a newspaper actually execute this illusion across lakhs of copies without losing impact? That’s where planning and collaboration come in—we don’t pitch ideas without checking on ground execution.
But honestly, newspapers have been doing print innovation long before digital became a global phenomenon. There’s a whole legacy of knowledge there, and they’re incredibly capable partners when you bring them a bold idea.
Q- How does OML define creative effectiveness when a campaign is built on surprise and virality?
We go back to the brand brief: did we deliver what they were aiming for, in a way that’s memorable? With Motorola, the objective was to highlight the phone’s all-curved display in a way that visually stood out—and we did that while making it a talking point online.
Plus, we created separate legs of the campaign to speak to different audiences—from dating struggles highlighting the true-colour camera, to billboards that poked fun at boring displays. The versatility of the creative, while staying true to the product, is what makes it effective.
But often, the efficacy of a campaign is determined by metrics laid out by the brand–usually it’s the reach, engagement rate, etc. So, from a creative POV, the idea needs to appeal to target audiences, brand managers, and of course to the brief (this being OML’s priority always).
Q – Beyond metrics like trends or impressions, what frameworks do you use to assess whether such creative risks deliver long-term brand value?
Trends are great, but we look deeper. Did the campaign shift perception? Did it help people see the brand differently? Did it create a cultural moment that aligns with the brand’s identity?
In this case, the comment “Motorola just fact-checked the entire smartphone industry with a newspaper” summed it up for us. The campaign not only showcased the phone—it repositioned Motorola as bold, innovative, and honest. That kind of brand equity sticks around long after impressions fade.