POV: New marketing strategy of Nokia phones is in its European origins?
HMD Global, which is running the Nokia Mobile story, is currently going through some rough times. The exclusivity manufacturing deal with FIH is over, and the distribution of newly announced phones is slow as usual. On top of that, there have been some internal changes, and the transformation of the business seems to be going quite slow. But, appears to me that HMD is not comfortably numb anymore, and the Finnish startup is beginning to look alive once again.
If you are subscribed to the Nokia Mobile newsletter, you might have received a promo message that shows a slightly different marketing approach. Maybe Nokia intervened or new marketing strategy was adopted, but whatever happened it is coming from Finland with love. Now the origin of the Nokia brand is emphasized in the message, and it is followed by a new Android One logo to show us the deep connection with the OS that Nokia phones are running. The Android story is not just about getting better with every update that Nokia phones will have for 2 years, or 3 if we count security updates, but it is also about the clean design and great build quality.
From Finland with love, this is Android at its best with monthly security updates. https://t.co/eXbqk9fISF #GetSmart #AlwaysUpToDate #Nokiamobile pic.twitter.com/ladMJc929J
— HMD (@HMDdevices) May 23, 2019
Something is changing inside the Nokia Mobile, and hopefully, this time it is in a good direction. While some important markets like Indian or US are still being cared for, the European market, for example, is almost completely neglected. Marketing activities are not visible in many countries across the EU, and good marketing can help build a brand. Europe needs a brand like Nokia whose phones can deliver great value for the money. If we go back to late 2017, Nokia Mobile managed to climb high on the brand market share list in some EU countries. But, when the focus was moved elsewhere, Nokia lost 18% of the EU market share.
Now that Nokia Mobile is pushing its European origins at first place, the visibility of their phones should be increased. It does require some finances, but Nokia phones could be efficiently marketed in the EU over the Internet. Also, a smart move would be to create an online Nokia store for EU countries, as many other companies have. Check the Whithigs one. Official Nokia website could help speed up the sales of new Nokia phone models, and accessories too. Anyway, all the phones that are going to come till the rest of 2019 will define whether Nokia brand is going to live some more or become just a reminder of good old times when smartphone industry was more dynamic. Now when Huawei and Honor are experiencing difficulties too, it is a good moment to wake up or become irrelevant like BlackBerry, HTC, or Alcatel.
