It happened again, and I couldn’t possibly let this one go by.
Nokia just came out with yet another innovation that SHOULD be market making – and I do hope it will be – if they just get the marketing right.
Judging by the launch though, looks as though the huge promise is not getting the treatment it deserves.
The announcement came as just a few minutes on stage, pulling out the new 41 megapixel cameraphone, the Nokia 808 PureView.
The result was an instantaneous explosion… of contradicting buzz:
Yes it’s great that it’s got 41 megapixels and new tech… sure hope Nokia’s back now…
AND…
Oh who cares about megapixels, this is another gimmick by Nokia, will be delayed and forgotten…
In other words, Nokia left it completely to the reporting public (yes I’m calling it that) to frame the message, what it means and how it’s perceived and perpetuated.
BIG mistake.
Could you even imagine Apple ever doing that?
The iPhone 4S came close actually, but that was just an incremental release of an already successful product.
There HAS to be a better way to package this. Let’s give it a shot:
‘NO MORE SMUTTY PICTURES!’
As a result of 5 years of ceaseless research no other mobile company is willing to do (Nokia spends 3X more on R&D than its rivals, and it shows)
The result completely transforms the experience of mobile photography and makes it ‘cool’ again!
- Over 5 times sharper than the latest iPhone: a stunning 41 megapixels (another industry first by Nokia)
- Zoom your pictures without losing any of the quality – no more fuzzy closeups! (a long time pet peeve of photo enthusiasts)
- Even three-time zooming leaves you with great quality
- Shoot great pictures in low-light situations: you get great snaps when it matters!
- Revolutionary oversampling technology combines 7 pixels into one: no more artificial, pixelated images!
- Shoot Full 1080p video with virtually lossless zooming and no-distortion audio
And then… you take those points and make it sing and fly!
Especially at an event that has a product launch per minute, you HAVE to make sure you get the messaging right.
Thankfully, Nokia still has a second chance to get it right during the runup to the actual market release of the device.
I do hope they’re paying attention to how it’s done right because it’s getting almost embarrassing to look at how they’re missing so many chances.
It’s ALL In The Framing
In this case, Nokia desperately needs to recapture The Frame – and not let bloggers or anybody else define it for them.
In the 1990’s Nokia got a nice head start thanks to a few breaks in technology and some bold decisions.
They were the number one in the world for almost two decades – and by many metrics still are!
But the perception has definitely changed, and you can’t really argue with that.
Over the past five years, they’ve let Apple and a bunch of tech journalists completely snatch the frame from them – meaning, letting them define what Nokia is or isn’t, how they’re relevant, why they’re doing what they’re doing.
Taking it back begins with making stronger statements, with incisive language, with their product launches. Sure, the product will speak for itself eventually, but if nobody gets it in their hands, the product is DOA.
With years of R&D put into these development projects, you’d think a little thought should go into how it’s perceived by the public?
Sure, Apple may even put almost too much attention on it, but that’s how they keep winning the hears and minds.
Market leadership is something you need to keep working on even after you have it. Giants can lose it, small companies can too. But it’s never too late to recapture the frame – becoming the leader is about making statements, and how you make them. Ready? Go!
People reacted to this story.
Show comments Hide commentsWow that phone looks amazing, I have always loved nokia products, my first ever cell phone was a nokia!
Yep it’s a cool one… of course the OS is the achilles’ heel but who cares really…
Who cares? I care about the OS, that’s the main part of a smartphone. Without a good OS you have a miserable experience. I can admit, it’s a super cool phone, but I wouldn’t buy it in a million years without a worthwhile OS.
It looks like you can be a Strategic Marketing Director for Nokia.
Some years ago I had a project for somebody that started a business with a webshop, where I also carefully thought about how to frame it.
Because on the one hand it was positive to have somebody youngh opening something new, only Youngh and New can also sound as un experienced and un known.
So for that I made from it that his business was a continuation of the (already known) business of his father also added with a new modern twist with also having a webshop. In a somewhat similar way as you mention the years of ceaseless research Nokia has done, I also make use of the many years of experience.
(Btw. it’s also all true because he really had been involved in his fathers company from an early age.)
It’s all about what place you have in the prospects minds.
Just as if you can view Affiliate Marketing as an interesting Business that lets you schedule your own time or for people that have no experience with building a Business and with only job experience as something weird and scary that isn’t a Job 🙂
Jim – I agree of course, and that’s the subject of an entirely different discussion. This one’s about how to market the features of a smartphone, and how Nokia still has some ways to go – and why their perception has gone down lately.
Interestingly, Apple with their latest two launches has also veered a bit towards specs based marketing instead of their old emotionally appealing route, so it’ll be interesting to see how things even out in the long term.
HP – Heh, you may be right, although I’m sure there’s no shortage of people vying for that position or something like it right now.
Your example is a good one – it’s always good to make proper use of tradition to create even more social proof.
It looks like Nokia should hire you Juho! Your pitch almost had me sold!
I fully agree with you Juho. Nokia has for long been exceptionally bad in communicating the (often wonderful) value their products create. Everybody knows that iPhone has Facetime, but nobody, not even owners of Nokia phones, know that Nokia has had similar feature since mid-00’s, even in lower-mid price range.
Tero – too true. I’m pretty sure I used video calls on my Nokia N-something in 2003 or 2004… They do all this research and fail to communicate it, much less package it. The fact that they practically dropped their entire software development is sad testimony to that…
yeah Juho, you should be hired by Nokia…
the Framing method you mentioned above was great..
Esha – heh 🙂 I do agree Nokia should hire someone like me, at least…
Hello, Juho. You make good points! The phone really looks good and the back camera’s design is impressive But I am not sure about what’s inside. You say that it is such an innovation, but do you know that the number of pixels does not play a big role in the quality of photos? It is common knowledge that image sensor size is what matters, not pixels, you can read about it here.
But I totally agree that Nokia still could make a big hit out of the phone if they took effort.
However, the reviews are not positive. For instance, CNET gave it 2.5 out of 5, which is quite a bad mark. The author says: “As a camera, the PureView scores five out of five. But it’s a smart phone, and as a smart phone the PureView has loads of drawbacks — the biggest being it’s tethered to the Symbian OS. The iPhone 4S, One X and Samsung Galaxy S3 are popular not only because of their competent cameras, but also due to their apps and intuitive user interfaces.” And she is absolutely right – Symbian OS had no future, no wonder it is dead. Take a look at mobile developers, no one develops for Symbian! And who will want a smartphone without apps and good functionality? That’s exactly why this Nokia smartphone has long been forgotten and Nokia has switched to Android.
Hi Lily! Thanks for dropping by and offering your comments, but you’re about 4 years late to the party 🙂 which is when I wrote this piece…
Lots has happened since, even Nokia’s planning a new resurgence, but that’s another story 🙂