Stefan Mileschin

What do you do when your business starts to circle the drain? Cutting costs is one option, and if it fails you might want to hire a superhero - at least that’s what HTC seems to be thinking nowadays.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the troubled smartphone maker slashed executive compensation by 51.3 percent last year. HTC also lost a number of high ranking execs over the last few months, which should help it save a few pennies.

Although HTC has not been out-engineered by Samsung, it was outspent by a very wide margin. In recent years, Samsung has indulged in a marketing binge - taking the limelight away from the competition even when their products were well regarded.

HTC was the first in the line of fire and it got the worst of it, but most other Android outfits also took a beating.

Now HTC has enlisted the help of Robert Downey Jr. to help fight off Samsung.

Downey has inked a two-year marketing deal valued at $12 million, according to Bloomberg. While it’s not exactly Samsung money, we are talking about Iron Man.

Although Downey didn’t come cheap, it could be a good move on HTC’s part. The company recently dropped its “quietly brilliant” motto and it doesn’t want to act like a second-tier manufacturer anymore.

Since the “quietly brilliant” approach didn’t work, nobody should be surprised by HTC’s makeover – it now wants to be louder and tougher than Iron Man and just as brilliant as Sherlock Holmes.

http://news.techeye.net/mobile/htc-e...arketing-drive