Nokia Drives Mobile Phone Marketing

The overall market for cell phones is experiencing its first decline since 2001. But smartphones are the growth area in the mobile phone market, and it’s the apps that sell smartphones. Users are being enticed to trade up from their dumb phones by downloadable programs, usually from third-party developers, that can be accessed for free or for a small fee at Web app stores.

Promo talked with Eric John, head of global marketing for Forum Nokia, the company’s mobile developer program. John, a member of the Promotion Marketing Association board of directors, spoke about how wireless hardware and software will come together to drive both mobile phone sales and mobile marketing.

PROMO: What roles do third-party apps play in marketing mobile phones?

John: Third-party apps are huge. We’re seeing our smartphone users spending 12% of our time making calls. The rest of the time, they’re texting, browsing the Web, e-mailing and uploading pictures. The use of advanced services is now dominant behavior on advanced mobile devices.

P: What significance does that have for marketers who want to use mobile phones?

J: It’s important to pick up on that trend and to start building mobile into their media mix, because that’s where many of their customers’ eyeballs are headed.

P: How does your developer group at Nokia help marketers take advantage of the mobile platform?

J: Nokia Interactive is a large network of premium carrier and publisher sites, including The New York Times, reaching some 15 million unique users. We work with that team to bring developers and agencies together to create apps and widgets that can take branded content and give it practical or daily utility.

For example, we recently launched something for Pepsi on www.PepsiMundo.com called the “Kung Fu Fighter” app. This supported a TV campaign they were running. It’s a really rich experience built in Flash and powered by Nokia. It lets mobile users view the TV commercial, vote on their favorite characters from the spot, play an interactive game. It’s a very rich brand-engagement solution.

P: That sounds like a highly integrated approach — not typical of a handset manufacturer.

J: It speaks to our strategy for becoming an integrated services and devices company. Nokia Interactive is part of a solution set to add value all up and down the food chain. For Forum Nokia, it’s an opportunity to use these applications as connective tissue between consumers and devices.

P: Last year Nokia launched a promotion in which users recorded video content on their phones and uploaded it. Then director Spike Lee edited it into a short film. What was the strategy there?

J: What was powerful about that promotion was combining the consumer experience or media creation and the advanced features on our devices. We have a Forum Nokia developer called Qik that has created an application that supports real-time streaming of content captured on the device and uploaded to the Web, and a similar company we’ve been working with for a while called Kyte. These let consumers become the content creators and citizen journalists.

During the recent Sundance Film Festival, Qik gave some of our N95 handsets to a team of people including Ashton Kutcher and his production company, Catalyst Media. They went around the festival and interviewed people and streamed that content immediately to a Web site, www.24hoursatsundance.com. They love our device; they’re fans of Nokia equipment.

P: What future developments will have an impact on the apps and functions that marketers can take advantage of in the mobile arena?

J: Through our work with Adobe [the creators of Flash animation], we’re making it easy for designers to make rich content and applications that look as good on mobile as they do on a desktop.

We’ve just announced a $10 million joint fund with Adobe to educate, support and commission Flash developers to create exciting new applications for Nokia devices, 300 million of which have Flash installed today. We have a Web site, www.OpenScreenProject.org, where agencies and developers can get information about how to participate.

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