Why Isn’t This A Nokia Ad?
Nokia takes huge strides to convince us that our S60-powered smartphones can be used to manage our lives in every aspect. Various marketing campaigns such as the Henry Needles one ask what’s in your pocket, is it many things, or one thing. Nokia’s various other activities encourage us to use our phones as digital cameras, MP3 players, and productivity machines. Built-in email, calendars, a killer web browser, and GPS offer everything you can think of, and more.
So then, when I saw the following commercial on TV the other day, I was astonished, convinced it was a Nokia commercial, for an S60-powered phone, and even showing in the United States. However, I knew it was too good to be true, and you can imagine my disappointment as, towards the end, the various pieces come together to form a BlackBerry.
Now, my first reaction is, why didn’t Nokia come up with this ad? Of course, it’s too late for that, though, so let’s form that into another, more useful question: Why isn’t Nokia coming up with clear, descriptive ads like this that will appeal to *real* people?
The latest Nokia marketing campaign is for the E71 and E66, dubbed ‘The Unloader‘. If you’ve not seen it, you can check it out, though you’re not missing much. It’s an online campaign that encourages you to upload a document that you hate (and presumably got via email) and have it destroyed by a complicated machine in a room somewhere, on video. Aside from a link to the product pages, it’s not immediately clear how this ties into the E71 or E66, and it most certainly doesn’t demonstrate why I should be interested in these devices. There’s mention of the updated email client, but there’s no demo of it, nor anything else shown in The Unloader that gives me an idea as to the benefits of these particular devices.
This isn’t the first time, either. You may recall the Nokia Open To Anything campaign, which showed the N95 8GB, along with a handful of instances where ‘users’ had come up with their own uses. The sad thing about this campaign, is that while it was close, none of the usage scenarios were realistic, and thus it didn’t really show how the N95 8GB would solve a problem you might have. (Also pointed out here.)
On the contrary, other campaigns immediately showed just how a specific device or feature was useful. The Stavros one (a personal favorite) clearly demonstrated how Nokia SportsTracker and the N82’s built-in GPS reciever could track your trips on a map, and encouraged users to do the same - real usage of real features. The ‘Open At Your Own Risk’ campaign required you to use the Download! app on your phone to download and install a ringtone, and application, and a wallpaper. Again, real usage of real features. Another great example is the Face the Task campaign, for the N96. Again, encouraging and showing off real usage of real features.
What do you think? Were you fooled by the BlackBerry ad, and left wishing Nokia had come up with it? Do you think the various marketing campaigns really educate people about why they’d want the latest S60-powered smartphone, or are they simply ‘neat’?
The ad was so close to usual Nokia ones, that I was also convinced that it will be another convergence ad from Nokia. Yet, Nokia is failing to advertise on TV the real-world features of S60 phones.
Take Apple's ads for example (sigh) - they show you the real experience of the phones. I would assume that Nokia uses a lot of "use cases" or "storytelling" in their product development - this is visible through features, which really feel natural e.g. flip-to-silent - yet they fail to put exactly those into advertising.
I would simply take this innovative features (FM transmitter, F2S, Sports Tracker or many past ones, like location tagging, TV-Out etc.) and advertise those one at a time.
Then of course you have the matter of (too) big portfolio, but that's a separate issue
(One fact which contradicts the usage of stories in PD is the Share Online FAIL. If there would be a real world scenario behind it, it shouldn't have some obvious limitations in there.)
Nokia has only 2 stores in the US (right
But that is one of the reasons that Blackberry has a good grip on the US (sorry to the IPhone users, but its just a toy) They advertise, and show the real usage, what people want to use their device for.
Check this one out:
I reviewed the Nokia Legends campaign back in August and while moderately amusing, these commercials do not show what you can really do with a modern Nokia smartphone. I suggested to Nokia that they do a commercial based on a real world example that I provided of a recent business Trip I took. I used my E90 to guide me to the airport using Maps and the internal GPS, I entertained myself on the plane with music and a couple of videos of TV shows that I recorded, I then used the GPS and Nokia maps to locate my customers office. During the meeting I received an SMS from one of my engineers providing me with updated information that directly affected the topic being discussed at the meeting so that I was able to provide the most current information to my customer. Over lunch, I got an email from another customer requesting a proposal for new work, stating that he needed it "right away". I had a copy of another proposal on my E90 and used QuickOffice to modify it accordingly and then used PDF+ to convert it to a PDF right on my E90 (I did not bring a laptop with me to the meeting). I then used my E90 to email the proposal. After the meeting, my E90 got me back to the airport and entertained me during the flight home.
My E90 has dramatically changed the way I do business because I am always connected via email and I can usually respond immediately to requests I get from my customers. This ability is noticed by my customers and gives me a competitive advantage. This is what Nokia needs to advertise.
Mark Laris