What Nokia needs to learn from Apple Keynotes. Pointers from Steve Job's iPhone 4 announcement.
This is mainly a tongue in cheek rant, written very late so it probably may not make sense. Note – if you are reading this, you are not the “public” which is described in this article.
Again, press X now or prepare for walls of text.
Perception, perception perception.
What Nokia needs to learn from Apple Keynotes. Pointers from Steve Job’s iPhone 4 announcement.
(There could equally be a post on what Nokia could learn from Apple products)
Via Gizmodo
Every time there’s an Apple event, we see that above all else, perception is somewhat more important than the product or service itself. (In the sense of effectiveness of message towards the general public)
At your product launches, you should get to control the intended first impression (unless you “lose” your proto and it gets reviewed, forcing an early launch) so make the most of this opportunity.
What Steve and Apple do best is explain why features are great, why they’re useful to you. Regardless if it’s mundane, it helps general public and the press vomit it verbatim. It helps in direct word of mouth conversation and even more so in online social media. Even if people are retweeting nonsensical bullshit, people are talking about your product in the positive way you choreographed it.
Elaborate on your features.
When announcing N9/MeeGo phone, please take note. Don’t just dispense of it quickly and ignore it. (aka N900 and X6 announcements that were literally sneezed into existence). Don’t just rattle off features. Take time with it, demonstrate to people what a feature does, why a particular feature is good, why it’s useful and how the N9/MeeGo Phone does this well.
This gets people emotionally connected to a feature as they can personally relate with your examples and place themselves in positions where they could benefit from such features/services offered by your device/brand.
It’s no good just listing out screen resolution. Even if it’s not that much more than others. Don’t leave it to a users imagination of what they can do with a feature.
Implant situations where they’d have a need for a feature. Look what Apple did.
No one else could have made a better song or dance about increasing screen resolution. Great job at keeping the screen at 3.5" as now they can boast super high DPI. Image from Engadget
They showed you why the higher resolution is more beneficial, dragging on about seeing much more detail, smoother images/fonts. Apple even went as far as creating a pseudo-scientific (for retards) term, “Retina Display” to make the “increased screen resolution” all that more exciting.
Point out the obvious. You may have so many great features, you over look something you consider minute. e.g. in video calling, point out you can use both front camera and main camera. But don’t just mention it, e.g. create a side feature in being able to “see what you see with the back of the camera”. It’s simple, but again gives a context of that feature in action. e.g. 2, with front camera, point out how the depth of field is perfectly aligned to be in focus at arms length – focusing on your face for video calling.
It doesn’t matter if other handsets have an identical feature. If yours performs the same, don’t bother making comparisons. e.g. Not much talking on how good the 5MP camera is. If yours works better, point out how yours is better.
Create new terminology for old features.
Pseudoscience makes something exceed your ability to understand it, thus making it "magical".
As just mentioned, if you’re introducing a feature that’s years old, buff it up with new names to make it seem different and cutting edge. e.g. Instead of video calling, use “FaceTime”, instead of high resolution screen, use “retina display”, instead of iPhone OS4, call it iOS4. It’s like calling the janitor Chief Hygiene and Sanitation engineer.
Or if you’re not changing the name, just make a statement of how your feature is somehow better. e.g. “Multitasking – Done the right way”. Many mobile users aren’t aware of multitasking therefore claiming yours does it the right way (lies that may be or not) you imply others are doing it wrong (even though they may be the ones giving you proper multitasking).
Retina Display (Via Engadget).
Marketing babble – Hyperbole power
It also helps to douse with ample hyperbole. “Amazing, magical, wonderful, phenomenal, great, fantastic, beautiful, slimmest, fastest” blah blah blah. Rinse and Repeat.
These subliminally etch into the mind that what you’re talking about is pretty special. Most people won’t have time to make their own decisions. They’ll just agree.
Furthermore, add some stats about how good your features are. It doesn’t really matter what they mean.
1) public avoids having to think and manually deduce comparisons; you’ve made it for them. N% thinner, N% faster, N% higher res etc.
2) It adds to what people can repeat. Instead of being a random specification 9.3mm think, stats give significance – i.e. N% thinner than Y.
I love Steve. Despite being an iDictator, he's a true Mobile Visionary who's revitalized the mobile market. (Edited engadget pic.)
E.G. Instead of just 960×640, you have, 4x resolution, 326 DPI. I doubt the majority even knew resolution iPhone was on previously, but that doesn’t matter. Now they know they have 4x resolution in new iPhone and 326 dots per inch (which they probably won’t understand either but hey, another thing to spout about).
Public don’t know what they want – you need to tell them.
Make them need what you want them to need. (via Gimodo)
What we have seen from Apple is that they don’t necessarily always bring new things to the table, but they do polish old features and make people want it. They weren’t the first with a touch screen, or a tablet, or to try and sell apps. They weren’t the first with 3mp cameras, 3G, GPS, Copy and Paste, Multitasking, Wallpapers, Folders, digital zoom and now Video Calling. But they do make a scene when they finally get certain old industry standard features and demonstrate to everyone that they do that feature better than anyone else (be it true or not e.g. multitasking).
The public, God bless them, has no recollection of these years old features and just blindly accepts them as yet another fantastic thing by Apple.
Nokia is the complete antithesis. They’ve always been pretty poor at shouting about things they do really well. They overlook fantastic features which Jobs would spend 10 minutes and 20 slides on were they to appear on iPhone.
Why does it work? Because the general public aren’t geeks. They don’t know what they want. They need to be told what they need. That’s why advertisements/commercials are so powerful. We just do what we’re told.
Apple has been the best in recent years of dictating exactly what you want in your devices and what features you don’t want. Even if it means being hypocritical years down the line, that doesn’t matter as the public won’t remember. e.g. When talking about Kindle in 2008, Jobs said, “People don’t read anymore”, but with launch of iPad, it’s all about iBooks, ePrint, eMagazines. If you aren’t good at something, dismiss it as useless, or even better, detrimental to mobile phone industry. e.g. Flash. MMS isn’t important, who sends MMS…Multitasking isn’t important it drains battery….
It’s all about creating the perception of need: Make your own game with your own rules
Jedi Mind Tricks not necessary to influence perception of others beyond their realms of logic. image via Gizmodo
Smartphones are luxury items, borne out of want not need. To be desirable you have to meet certain requirements, certain characteristics, certain needs. You can either meet the needs of an already established market or create your own niche. The latter more powerful as you’re in the driving seat. You make your audience need what you want them to need.
When apple announced the iPhone in 2007, they made a game changer. With that, they wrote the rule book. You want touch screens only, you want swishy UIs, you want apps, you don’t want hardware keyboards. Everyone else followed and played along, but it’s impossible to score points, catch up and over take when Apple is in charge and constantly changing these rules.
You must step out and make your own game, create your own set of rules, produce a new paradigm of mobile. Innovate, focus the public’s attention into wanting something else. e.g. how Nintendo broke away from the graphics race.
If you have a feature that you do particularly well, make that seem like the most important thing in the world. Establish that phone as the best in the world at doing that. Or at least make a deal of that feature if indeed it’s new for your device or a unique/rare feature in the market.
Smoke and Mirrors
In the end, all that matters is that people prefer your product over competitors. Manipulating perception destroys logical thinking, removing any sense of practicality. Just make them crave your device.
Of course it’s necessary to have a really good product, but when smartphones are becoming extremely similar (basically just a window) you need to separate yourself from the competition.
You need to have a believable, friendly, and really motivated speaker.
Steve Jobs is to the Tech world what Barrack Obama is to Politics. They both seem to speak with purpose. You kinda want to listen to what they have to say.
You’ve got a great presentation ahead of you, positioned your killer key points, now you need a fantastic speaker to sell it to the public.
We want someone who is used to speaking in public. Someone maybe who is used to following a script, or is excellent at speaking impromptu without hesitation.
E.G. Whilst it was great to see a product manager talking to honestly about the N8, it did seem terribly rushed and unprofessional.
Whilst Nokia has learnt from the N97 about only producing truthful video performance demoes, it doesn’t hurt to polish the delivery of your presentation, aka sales pitch. It’s not merely about content – how something is said maybe just as important as what has been said.
One way to assist excellent delivery is to pepper the presentation with highly choreographed and well directed videos (perhaps at start or at the end). These videos must show people/families using your product like it’s the easiest and most wonderful thing ever created. Use popular slogans, even if they’re not your own.
Sell ASAP.
Now they’ve bought in to your pitch, you have to get them ready to hand over their wallet.
What apple do best is they create and concentrate hype and within that window they sell you that product. Hype, hype, hype – sell, sell, sell.
Once sold, people can share their love for that device, bring more hype and attract more sales.
What Nokia’s doing with their flagships is announcing them months in advance, creating lots of hype, hype, hype, but then making people wait, and wait, delay maybe, and more wait to the point where it maybe forgotten and no one cares as other devices have been announced.
In that time, that Nokia handset has aged. and released amongst newer competitors e.g. N97. Announced 6-7 months prior to launch. I had hoped for only a 30-60 day wait at best for N8. Perhaps Nokia’s hand was pushed to announce it early given the scathing report/preview on a lost Proto N8.
Fortunately, the N8 still has some pretty advanced features that won’t grow too stale by August/Sept. The timing of release however, is not haphazardly decided. Unfortunately it seems more due to the unreadiness of Symbian^3 here and Symbian^1 in N97.
___
So come on Nokia. There’s still over a couple of months left till big Nokia World 2010. We want to see some magic!
Category: aPPLE, Nokia, Rant, Suggestions
on point and exactly my thoughts jay. fantastic post!
Thanks Michael
Nokia could learn a lot from Apple. Maybe OPK should weak black jumper and jeans? That maybe the secret!
OPK is a lawyer…forget it. His idea of dressing down would be to go from three button cuffs to french cuffs.
HAHA.
Totally agreed, with a similar post on my blog about how to be honest and educate the customers while keeping the control of requirements withing your self.
Cheers, saw the blogpost. Yup, other industry leaders can learn from Apple/Jobsio too. Mostly Nokia as they just don’t seem to get the whole self promotion thing.
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Great Post! I was thinking exactly about that! What is missing how great Apple is in regards to monetization…
Thanks Sina!
You can mail this post to nokia top management
Therein lies the problem…Nokia top management doesn’t read this blog nor most others. The problem with living inside a Finnish bubble…it freezes and never pops.
Jah, if I do mail it would probably get ignored as some crazy ass blogger (which is understandable).
Very well put Jay. There’s far too little regard for public perception in the computer and tech industry in general, it’s probably a sign of its immaturity and the fact the Microsoft was the poster child of computing for so long. Not anymore though.
Nokia could do with a new frontman for their product launches.
I’m not looking forward to the All About Symbian Insight podcast that deals for the iPhone 4. What can the team honestly say about it without sounding like they’re making excuses for Nokia. I guess they could always focus on FaceTime and how it’s just Apple pushing 2006 technology with clever marketing, the iTunes walled garden and how Android will soon eat Apple’s lunch anyway so it’s doesn’t really matter… Probably best to ignore the A4 chipset, the gyroscopes, the 720p 30fps HD video capture with touch to focus, iMovie, the backlit sensor, the 326dpi screen, iBooks, etc, etc.
Thanks James.
I wonder who could pull off a possible front man job for presenting MeeGo phone. OPK and Anssi are most likely the two default candidates, but can they be as fired up with MeeGo phone (and other announced phones) as Jobs would be with iPhone?
As for AAS, I would have to agree with you in that there’s even less to poke at against iPHONE. I guess everyone’s beef is more to do with how they are sort of rubbing it in your face that they can say whatever and people believe them.
e.g. comment on bringing video calling, bringing video recording. They didn’t bring that, they caught up.
I’m pumped to see their “RETINA” display.
Maybe Steve has hired a team of used car salesmen in his marketing department. What apple been giving the low specs on an expensive pricetag along with decent (not great) UI to the masses. Apple products sometimes do a really good job of understanding their consumers.
Apple=expensive=fashion. Focus here guys, “nothing cheap makes a good fashion statement” for the masses.
I applaud what Apple has done with iPhone but I hate it when they push bullshit out like “People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality”. I hate that they imply they’re the first to do that. They could equally have been as effective by pointing out they may have done video calling in the best possible manner. I just don’t get the needless lies.
I’d prefer OPK’s strong finish accent and associated mispronunciations (eg ‘sosal networks’) any day over Stevie J, tyvm.
The guy is a tool. Gets himself and the herd excited over basic functionality such as folders or a wallpaper. “We call it iWallpaper. It’s great, it let’s you do all these amazing things.”
x_x
Love OPK. Will always have MUUULLLTIMEDYA COMPYYUUTAARS in my memory when I remenisce about good old Nokia days and N95. HAHA.
Great post. Really nice read.
Thanks Jarno!
Steve Jobs could sell sand to a Bedouin. OPK, on the other hand, couldn’t sell a charged fire hose to a fella locked inside a burning building! This is the fundamental difference between these two companies.
Check out Nokia trying to sell the C6: http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/04/15/nokia-c6-brings-the-best-messaging-together-video/
…or the N8: http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/05/28/nokia-n8-overview-part-1-of-3-video/
Wake up! That was supposed to be riveting!
Nokia, I love your vision/strategy and have found most of your products compelling (except the N97, yuk). You are one of the greatest innovators in the mobile world…WHO KNEW?!?
Fantastic comment. Soz delay, wordpress filtered it as spam due to having a couple of URLS.
This post is in part mostly from an original rant about the N8 overview. It’s not Bennet’s fault, it’s the management who agreed that was good enough to be posted in public.
There are so many places they could have pointed the N8 in a more positive light. Actually there were so many things wrong with the first N8 video I never published that rant because I got kinda pissed off writing it. We shouldn’t have to be pointing out things like that.
This article is spot-on, it articulates some of the concepts that have continually eluded Nokia in this new market. A lot of effort needs to be directed at improving the marketing focus areas and the launch strategy at Nokia.
One interesting strategy with Apple that should be very obvious to any other consumer electronics company, is that once they launch a product, all Apple’s public interfaces are converted to marketing points. This ranges from websites, to app store, iTunes etc. Today, if you wanted to review Nokia’s N8, you have to “search” for the product on the internet.
As you have indicated, Apple does a good job at repackaging already existing technology and features. Nice article !
Agreed…when it comes to hammering talking points…Apple is the FOX News of the mobile industry.
Thanks Ariane.
You’re right. This post is pretty much pointing out the obvious. It’s strange no other manufacturer can carry it off. It’s like they want to be stuck marketing the old way.
lol @jb8967
Very well done. You would think the people actually getting paid by Nokia to do this kind of thinking would have made themselves known through some shiny new Jobs-esque marketing champion by now. It’s sheer and basic oversight that keeps other companies from making huge splashes in the market like Apple is. More power to Apple for their mad marketing skills, but they really shouldn’t be the only ones leading the market. The whole old-tech-new-price reminds me of the Nintendo DS, how much of a running gag it really is, even if it’s a good product.
Especially for a company as huge as Nokia, they do fall at several completely avoidable hurdles such as presenting their product properly to the masses.
It’s a shame but apple has pointed out how fickle and clueless the general public is. Once you manipulate their perception towards your product, you have them. Your persuasive words can counter any logical decision making.
Eventually the product reaches such high esteem that its intrinsically desirable.
Too true about the DS. Like iPhone it made a totally different niche for itself, with rules it controls (touch/button hybrid casual games). They made people like those type of products instead of competing in graphics arena with PSP.
New DS apparently gonna be more powerful than Wii (though Wii wasn’t a powerhouse to begin with)
Very honest, well thought out and to-the-point post.
Perception wins over reality any day of the week in the general populace.
Thanks Andre.
Glad you managed to get through the rant.
Yup, it’s all about perception. This is why Apple wins at marketing because none of the other manufacturers are really understanding how to manipulate it.
As geeks we can shout and rave about unwarranted claims but Joe Average has no idea about this and frankly doesn’t care. As long as apple claim they are amazing and media jump on board, Apple just gain more customers.
It’s all good Nokia trying to be nicey, nicey and honest, but last I heard this was business.
Too too true there Jay.
So often I’ve had to correct people making claims about apple bringing the full Web to phones. Its shocking. (Albeit they did make the experience much more tolerable than it used to be)
I’d love for someone at Nokia to get up on a pedestal and SELL their product, explain to everyone why they should buy it and why its the best. Thats something that the guys at AAS mentioned just recently.
Yup, that’s another case example. My friends have been reiterating the phrase “oh iPad gives me full web”…and other mac phrases…I doubt they know what they’re saying, just repeating carefully selected jobsio words verbatim.
Fingers crossed they make a fuss over MeeGo phone and other handset announcements at Nokia World.
It’s entirely possible that Nokia could announce both phones and tablets at Nokia World. Wouldnt that be something
Nokia needs to announce the Meego tablet (n9?) or an E8 Symbian^3 with Qwerty. The phone should bring a 1500Mah battery, 4 inch super hi res screen with trans-reflective properties, dual Xenon/LED flash, 512 or greater RAM, and at least a 1.3 GHZ CPU with dedicated GPU. NOK needs to take the wind out of Apple’s sails…NOW. We need to see the 2010 flagship…NOW. Developers are interested in the N8…the Flagship will get them really excited.
Announcements should be arriving September 14th and September 15th at Nokia World.
I’d love Nokia to push imaging into high end MeeGo. They’ve got all the artillery, why not put it in one battleship of a phone and just smash the competition.
MeeGo should be ample revolution for Nokia in terms of high end OS. Fingers crossed they deliver equally high end specifications and as you say, take the wind out of Apple (and Android’s sails).
What a fantastic and perceptive post. Nokia marketing, you need to hire this guy!
Thanks Noel, very flattered.
I’m sure (and hope) Nokia knows what they’re doing. It’s pretty much common sense/obvious stuff (hope so for Nokia anyway!).
I’m not certain whether it’s an active decision not to market aggressively like apple or whether they are just not aware how to do it. I’m praying for the former as with a big company like Nokia, it’s hard for an outsider to truly understand what’s going on without full knowledge of what’s happening internally. Maybe they’ve got a better marketing stragety that we just haven’t seen yet.
Right now though,Nokia really got to up their game on the public perception part and raise their profile as a desirable brand again. Well executed product launches are the best opportunity to make such a large impact on mindshare.
I disagree with most of the rant except the last part.
Hype by media and fans are what make a false sense of excitement for Apple, they have no hand in it. Nokia can match that only if media saw them as important.
No, the only part Nokia need to improve greatly is immediate availability of products after announcement. This includes accessories.
If they said you get the N8 next week after its official unveiling, then awesome. Waiting sucks, and its worse when the competitors are ready with theirs.
Maximum availability it everything in every retail outlet……NOW
Fair enough
Most of the rant is in jest, only a few things I wanted to be taken literally.
Main point was just to focus on creating better perception of their products at launch. Communicate to the public about their strengths as a company, the strengths of a particular device and how a particular device excels at a given feature.
By carefully controlling perception of your device you can bring hype from fans and the media which the Media could see as important. e.g. N900 videos screaming about the N900 as uber powerful. The media for a while went with it (though ultimately could not stick the hefty size and resistive screen.
I really hope there’s no arduous waiting with N9/MeeGo phone.
Very much so. I think my head would explode having too many great things to cover. New MeeGo Phone, New MeeGo Tablet, possible new Symbian^3/Symbian^4 handset. Hope Nokia learn to focus and not get lost in the awesomeness.
Maybe they should do a package deal, discount if you get phone and tablet at same time. Maybe a N97 trade in as suggested by commenters. ^_^
A package deal would be utter pwnage lol.
Don’t think my pockets are quite deep enough for that though.
A discounted price for a new device on the back of a N97 trade wouldnt be that bad an idea.
ha, neither would my pockets. Let’s see if Nokia can do their pricing magic and bring a budget tablet with high end features.
N97 trade would be the best thing my N97 could do. It’s just sitting on my desk, turned off, attempting to look pretty.
attempting to look pretty!! lmfao!!
I’m sure they could put something together with a larger featureset than the Ipad for a similar price.
What an awesome post.Hope the higher management of Nokia read this and implement.
Thanks Sathish! I hope so, at least some of the more serious points anyway ^_^
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Great post, but this will never work for Nokia.
If Nokia were to hold live presentations directly off of thier handset on stage, they would have to iron out all the bugs first, and that usually doesn’t happen until a 365 days after they shipped it.
So I agree with your argument, but they also need a solid product, and the confidence in their own product to launch it the Apple way.
And the truth may very well be that they would be ridiculed because their phone freezes and crashes on stage.
Thanks Martin,
Yup, as mentioned, on the back of this marketing, Nokia has to back it up with an excellent product.
N900 didn’t have any major bugs that affected usage. It was very solid at launch, little or no crashing unless you went and installed the testing/non consumer level apps.
Demoing the phone on stage is not absolutely necessary (though would greatly help) – video demoes would suffice. And I’d expect what they would demo live would have been tested a million times over, rehearsed to find out before hand what could/would crash.
However, this demoing would only be possible if at announcement the phone would be available extremely soon. Rumours have it N9 will not be available until early 2011, many months after Sept launch, so it may be ill advised to demo live a phone that could stupidly be 6 months away from release. (Taking N900 as example however, that was launched Sept, available Oct-Nov?)Meh, who knows. I hope nokia sort this release date issues out.
Very well written indeed!
Thanks!
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thank you! i am easily sold as a consumer with ads/etc, and this makes me think twice!!!