Vipul Mehrotra, who heads Nokia India’s smart devices division talks about his company’s plans with the windows phone operating system
 
A close look at Nokia’s releases in recent months indicates that the company is focusing on launching higher-resolution cameras in its Symbian phones, and better gaming or music app in its Window Phone 7-based Lumia phones. Is that so?

I don’t subscribe to that view. Even in the Lumia range that includes Lumia 800, 710 and 610, much attention has been paid to delivering a superior imaging system. So we have got imaging, location services and entertainment bundled in the Lumia range, apart from social and gaming experiences. On the other hand, Symbian OS is not new generation and we plan to phase it out over time.

How has the response to the highly anticipated and premium product, the 41 mega pixel-carrying Nokia PureView 808 handset, been?

I can’t give you any sales numbers as of now, but what I can share is that it’s creating lot of buzz on the blogosphere and social media platforms. Many enthusiasts are buying this phone and posting pictures taken from a PureView camera which has a high-quality Carl Zeiss lens.

In recent months, on one hand while you launched a Symbian OS-based feature phone (the Asha), you also launched a Windows-powered phone. Then you created a separate category called PureView on the Symbian Belle OS. Don’t these cross-category launches cannibalise each other’s sales?

It’s not the game of one operating system harming another. Why? It’s the truly differentiated experience you give to the consumers that matter. PureView has a role to play as the flagship imaging device with a 41 MP camera, while Lumias are our smartphones. Each category has its own weight.

How has slowdown been affecting sales of Nokia India in recent times?

I think the introduction of new devices, new experiences and giving existing consumers upgrades in the form of some great software apps, have only taken us higher.

In the past, we would generally have advertisement and marketing initiatives based on new handset models. Now we see that focus of the ATL campaigns are more on OS platforms. Is that correct?

To an extent, I would again differ in opinion. At the highest level, say the premium category, the focus of marketing is still on the experience delivery. But when it comes to communicating to the market about new product launches based on a particular OS, then we get to see more talk about that OS.
 
And how about the future of Lumia and Symbian phones?

We announced in February last year that going forward, the Lumia platform will be our flagship smartphone range. That’s my answer still. Within 6 months of our announcement then, we had two Lumia devices in the market. We’ve expanded the portfolio to four now. Three of them are already in India, we will launch the fourth one soon too. We know that it’s a winning strategy for us. The Microsoft Marketplace app store saw a 1,000% increase in activity y-o-y during the last quarter – that shows the confidence of app community and consumers in our smartphone range.

Going forward, how will Nokia work towards building value of the brand as a handset maker?

A lot of competition is happening in apps. But, we have started to focus on the experience of our users. This differentiated app-ecosystem will build on Nokia’s brand and sales in the Indian market. So we have a more comprehensive strategy in action, based on scale, price points, distribution and marketplace with our ecosystem partners.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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An Ad is a product of painstaking craftsmanship. Various elements, ranging from positioning of the product, clarity of the idea behind the product to visibility of the brand, its persona and the power of communication have to be intelligently weaved together. But while some ads manage to rewrite preset creative benchmarks, some go the wrong way, fall by the side & fail to excite viewers. In this section, we review three Ads that came out tops, for the right and the wrong reasons this fortnight.

smart-asses or cheaters?

Advertiser: Pepsi India
Baseline: Mauke Pe Chauka
Agency: JWT

4Ps B&M Take: Pepsi has come up with a new twist to its ‘Change the Game’ brand campaign this summer and they are calling it ‘Mauke Pe Chauka’. This time they have introduced a football based TVC for the first time in India. But the cricket is not far behind - with Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh playing ‘stars’ in this film yet again against Chelsea’s Didier Drogba, Fernando Torres and Frank Lampard. So the three footballers enter the grounds and one of them picks up a bottle of Pepsi. Kohli, Bhajji and Raina – who are sitting poised as if to guard every bottle – take back the bottle saying that if the Chelsea guys want Pepsi, they had better play ‘our’ game – obviously cricket. Then ensues some amazing footwork by Drogba, Torres and Lampard – who volley the ball towards the stump and eventually dismiss Kohli. But Dhoni – who plays wicket keeper – suddenly raises his head and says ‘No Ball’. Of course, the footballers are flummoxed and ask him the meaning of the term. Dhoni says: ‘No ball, means no Pepsi’ and the cricketers burst out laughing. Why? Please don’t ask us. The challenge apparently was for the footballers to play the game – and not win it – in order to earn the Pepsi. And if the cricketers were supposed to look smart for tricking the Chelsea players out of their bottle of Pepsi – they didn’t! This is not to say that the ad itself is a washout. It’s not. Leave the cut and paste job that comes out (clearly, Drogba, Torres and Lampard’s scenes were shot somewhere else and pasted on the Indian scenes), it’s a nice attempt at combining two sports (and respective celebrities) that the Indian youth may idolize. In other words, if only brand recall was the objective of Pepsi, then they’ll more or less succeed in their attempt if the ad is repeated ad nauseum. For everything else, there’s Mastercard...
 
Compare at your own risk

Advertiser: Nokia Lumia
Baseline: Blown Away by Lumia

4Ps B&M Take: Nokia seems to be running out of ideas to promote its new Lumia smartphone. In the latest campaign, an all dolled up Priyanka Chopra throws a challenge to another girl to verify if there is any smartphone which can compete with her Nokia Lumia 800 and win. The race is to update the word ‘challenge’ on both Facebook and Twitter simultaneously to establish which of their smartphones upload faster. But come on. Does it really matter? If you are habituated to your phone, have good connectivity and quality apps – any smartphone can do that job for you. Anyway, the girl obviously comes in second with Piggy Chops beating her to the task on hand. QED: Nokia Lumia 800 is ‘faster’ than any other smartphone in the world. Even the storyboard is a throwback to the ‘Surf ki kharidari mein hi samajdhari hai’ Lalitaji days. Hardly smacks of any ingenious bursts of creativity. Comparative advertising is good. It has also worked well for some brands in the past. Remember Complan and Horlics, Rin and Tide? But wake up guys. This is the 21st century. 24x7 influx of media has made consumers so cynical that they even read ‘’news’ with a pinch of salt. Blatantly comparative ads like this one may get you the temporary eyeballs – perhaps even a few ‘lucky’ trial consumers – but they’re not going to ever get you frenzied sales of the iPhone variety.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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