Hey @Nokia, please advertise your Nokia mapping solutions more?

If there’s one thing Nokia is supreme at is that it sucks at advertising anything that it is good at.

You’ll never really know half the amazing stuff a Nokia is capable of unless you’re in a Nokia blogosphere related bubble.

Outside of it, Nokia’s assets fizzle away because why? Nokia won’t advertise it. If they do, they will advertise it in the WORST WAY POSSIBLE or advertise it really well, but you’ll never see that advert ever again.

Why? I don’t know. It seems ingrained into their way of working that all good things must remain secret.

What brings me to rant this Monday morning is this advert that popped up in front of another YouTube video. It’s Google’s attempt at offline maps, which looking at their own advert looks complicated as hell.

What else can Nokia do? What about talking about your supreme offline navigation? Or the fact that you don’t just download tiny portions of maps but can do whole countries, continents or even the whole world. In your pocket. We could have a similar situation where we actually bring up the navigation to give someone else directions instead of blabbing “go left and then go right and then..blah di blah blah”.

Mapping is something we’re taking for granted. Apple has joined the map fights. Nokia Maps is becoming more important at Nokia by the day as Nokia struggles to remain relevant. Please shout about the things you’re good at.  I love that I can just pull up Nokia Drive, find a place or drop in a post code and in mere seconds begin navigation. I love how it can be in a city I’m living in or a new one I’ve never been to but NEVER feel lost. I love how friends/family who I’ve recommended Nokia drive to have the same sense of security when they venture out to new places. I love the simplicity. I love that little bleep from Nokia Drive that tells you off if you’re speeding.

I’d like to see real life situations of people using and enjoying Nokia mapping solutions. Show the screen, show it in action, show how reliable Nokia maps is at getting you from lost to ‘you have reached your destination’.

I don’t want to see vague/artsy/meaningless adverts. I want to see adverts about Nokia mapping solutions that allows consumers to understand WHAT it (e.g. Nokia Drive) is, WHAT it can do, HOW it can be relevant and useful for them, all demonstrated in an advert they can connect with and place themselves in the position of the actors.

Comments on YouTube…>_>

I don’t even want to begin complaining about bringing Nokia maps 3D to mobile.

This is nice, but it’s not good enough. It’s just a screen. I can’t connect with it. I don’t know what’s going on here. Give me a REALISTIC situation, an actual use of the maps.

Notice how Nokia’s take on ‘being one of the locals’ vs google’s actual representation on being one of the locals.  Nokia’s video briefly mentions it to the point you might not have noticed it at all. Google’s video is all about being street smart with the help of your maps. I remember the first time I went to Manchester, I actually helped other visitors find places they were looking for with Nokia Maps. I didn’t know myself where I was but with Nokia Maps, I could not only get myself where I needed to be, but also strangers!

Some ideas: perhaps getting a family or a group of friends to use it to get from one place to another, stop it midway to find a shop and continue on after successfully buying some food for the journey. Or someone has just moved to a new city and has a dentist appointment but doesn’t know where the clinic is. Or a friend wants to visit another friend at their house but doesn’t know where that might be.

The most comforting words? “You have reached your destination” over and over, and always being at the correct place, on time with no hassle.

Why aren’t we seeing something like this on the official Nokia channel? This video below is from Nokia india. The closest I think I’ve seen to this is the NokiaConnects promo where bloggers took features from the 800 and I had Nokia Drive. That was a real life use for maps.

I really do not enjoy the choppy nature of this video

This one is good, though reeks a little of trying too hard with the humour.

BTW, does maps have a ‘where am I’ feature that you can send to someone who’s asking you where you are? I’ve not ventured too much into the maps myself to find this. Being able to take a screenshot would be good. Bring back that ‘Own Voice’ app thing too.

Why does Nokia spend hundreds of millions in the advertising department and produce so little? I can complain much more about various aspects of Nokia advertising but I’m going to focus this post for Nokia Maps related things as having too much to talk about is yet another problem sometimes from Nokia ads.

Category: Rant