Can Nokia Lumia 900's blockbuster launch really challenge Apple's iPhone?
Posted by: Stuart Smith in Advertisers, Creative, News April 9, 2012	Comments Off on Can Nokia Lumia 900's blockbuster launch really challenge Apple's iPhone?
Like me, perhaps, you missed one of this year's most critical product launches. That's because, for reasons still not entirely apparent, it took place on Easter Sunday.
Never mind that though. All the most influential tech reviewers are agreed: the Nokia Lumia 900 is undoubtedly one of the finest smartphones money can buy, with its big, 4.3in screen, intuitive operating system, eight megapixel rear camera and VGA front-facing cam, not to mention 4G LTE data capability. And at the astonishing price of only $99 (terms and conditions apply, two-year contract only, sorry rest-of-the-world, you'll just have to wait and see…), it looks like a snip.
But will it be? The Lumia's significance lies not so much in it technological prowess as who's behind it.
This may be the first and only chance for Nokia, Microsoft and AT&T to break the iPhone's increasingly assured stranglehold over the sector. Nokia, once hailed the world's leading mobile phone manufacturer, has so far made almost no impact in the dynamic smartphone sector dominated by Apple and Google/Android.
Microsoft, developer of the admired but definitely connoisseur-only Windows Phone 7.5 operating system, has so far lacked a suitable vehicle to gatecrash the market. And AT&T, the US carrier with sole Lumia launch rights, is playing a desperate market catch-up game with its rivals Verizon and Sprint Nextel, after earlier losing exclusivity over US iPhone sales.
Little, apart from that quirky Easter Sunday launch date, is being left to chance. And with some of the world's powerful brands behind it (AT&T, for instance, is America's second biggest advertiser) it seems hard to conceive of abject failure. AT&T alone is spending $150m through BBDO on the Lumia launch campaign – more than it ever spent on the iPhone.
And there has been much hullabaloo in Times Square with a spectacular live event – watched by 'tens of thousands of people' and videoed on Facebook – featuring 60-foot CGI-generated waves which cascade down a building.
If only smartphone marketing were simply about price, position, product and promotion, the Lumia 900 would have a field day. Alas, it's also about apps. As a leading member of the tech commentariat David Pogue, of the New York Times, points out:
The Lumia 900 is fast, beautiful and powerful, inside and out. Unfortunately, a happy ending to this underdog story still isn't guaranteed. Windows Phone 7 faces the mother of all chicken-and-egg problems: nobody's going to write apps until WP7 becomes popular — but WP7 won't become popular until there are apps.
And it's anyone's guess when that might be.
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advertising apple at&t iPhone Microsoft Stuart Smith	2012-04-09
Stuart Smith
About Stuart Smith
Stuart Smith is one of the most incisive and knowledgeable commentators on global marketing. He was a long-time editor of Marketing Week during the period when it was the UK's leading marketing, media and advertising specialist publication. Visit Stuart Smith Blog.