Nokia launches £1 million campaign in a bid to become the UK’s next business mobile. Jessica McGreal reports
Mobile has changed dramatically over the last 10 years and somehow within this change the business mobile market has nearly collapsed, helped by the death of BlackBerry and the popularity of bring your own device (BYOD). However, we have now entered a new era of mobile technology and Nokia is ready to offer business customers an alternative business phone. Not traditionally associated with business, Nokia has a high hurdle to get over – aiming to grow its presence in the business phone market from 13 per cent to 20 per cent by the end of 2014.
Nokia Lumia
To achieve this feat Nokia has launched a £1 million ‘Built for business. Designed for life’ campaign aimed at UK businesses.
Following the success of its six-week outreach campaign, which ran in October 2013, Nokia has chosen to focus on a segment of its audience. The second phase of the activity launched in January and encourages senior IT executives within small-medium businesses (SMBs) to sign up to a one-month trial of three Lumia devices.
Working with The Marketing Practice, the campaign is a highly personal VIP experience: Nokia Lumia trial packs are currently being distributed to 300 SMBs across the UK. The idea behind the trial is to generate increasing productivity for the companies’ trialling the phones while creating a buzz and some home grown content from users documenting their ‘Nokia experience’. The activity aims to provide those brands with the tools, information and support to make an informed decision when switching their smartphone.
VIP
Due to the highly targeted nature of the campaign Nokia prioritised those businesses with the greatest urgency – companies with a contract renewal in the next six months.
The brand utilised all its marketing channels and extremely high quality data to ensure the devices were put in the right hands. This included influencer-based social media activity, email broadcasts, online advertising and media outreach.
Despite a few small hiccups the campaign has not faced any major problems. Nokia is convinced this is down to the significant amount of time that was spent planning. Admitting the key to a problem-free campaign is integration between sales, marketing and the agency.
The box
So what’s in the box?
The white box contains three of Nokia’s latest smartphones: Nokia Lumia 520, 625 and 925. It also contains a seven-inch video card, which plays an introductory guide from Adrian Williams, director of business sales UK and Europe at Nokia.
Nothing has gone amiss. Next to the technology are more detailed guides and a nifty tool to allow IT experts to cut their SIM cards down to microSIM size and get started straight away. But there’s no need for recipients to worry that their SIM may be ruined – the brand also supplies adapters if the recipient decides to return to their own handsets.
Although Angela Munroe, B2B marketing at Nokia UK & IE, explains: “We have evidence to suggest users that use Lumia as their main work device are very unlikely to switch back to their own device (whether it’s BlackBerry, iPhone or Android). Our devices represent lower cost than the competitors out there. We wanted to find a way we could get it into the hands of the users and also make sure the experience matched our ethos.”
It is too early to report on any results. However, the first phase of the campaign – featuring outreach ads – generated nearly six million impressions, with over 50,000 clicks. Overall it delivered 110 per cent of the forecast numbers.
The next phase
Nokia is looking to extend the campaign through a host of activities including a full content marketing programme and a trial of its larger screen devices. This will include ongoing engagement and social reach that was kicked off at the end of last year, on top of more collaborative work with its mobile providers, 02, Vodaphone and EE.
