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Faced with aggressive consumer brand rivalry in a growing but cut-throat market, Finnish handset giant has roped in the King of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, to make sure that it keeps the market share lead.
With a 75 per cent share in the market, Nokia has a lot to defend against rivals such as Motorola and Sony Ericsson, who have their own Bollywood models in Abhishek Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan, respectively.
In a television commercial set to go on air this week, Khan, who is way above the other two stars, is driving a not-so-subtle message that Nokia is an alternative to landlines, hoping to associate the Finnish brand with mobile telephony itself as a generic phenomenon.
This comes amidst a general trend that increasingly, more callers favour cellphones over landlines in the US – something that could spread across the world.
“Nokia was the undisputed leader of cellphones in India until a while back and they are still leading but people are taking a fancy to other brands as well. The market is opening up very fast and one needs to have a brand that can have affinity with people across categories – man, woman, young or old. Shah Rukh Khan is neither a bachha nor an oldie and can reach out to people across age groups,” Santosh Sood, independent marketing consultant told Hindustan Times.
With a younger generation willing to explore alternative options, it is a tough call for Nokia to stay ahead in a market which it has dominated for 13 years.
“Shah Rukh Khan represents youth, he is trendy and also tech savvy. He has been a Nokia user for the last ten years and hence, this association,” Devinder Kishore, Director Marketing, Nokia India told Hindustan Times. Not disclosing the ad spend that the company is going to invest into this campaign, Kishore added that the TVC would be followed by outdoor and prints ads later.
However, Khan is not yet the official brand ambassador for Nokia – a relationship that the company has left open.
The ad has been directed by Pradeep Sarkar, who directed recent movies like Parineeta and Laga Chunari Me Daag. Previous Nokia ads were more product specific and thematic and of course, without a celebrity.
The ad shows Shah Rukh in various acts of life, on and off the sets, trying to manage work, life balance, with Nokia being the device that connects it all up.
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Tango 20 December 2007
10:22:19 pm
Top brand Nokia takes the top actor SRK
Just like Airtel.
Sunny 20 December 2007
10:32:36 pm
Tango bhai, you’re so mean! Kyun jalaate rehte ho sabki
FloydRulez 21 December 2007
12:50:19 am
Digression:
I’m looking for a new phone. At first wanted a show pony from Apple. But after some intense research in the internet, I’ve decided to get N95-8GB (easily superior to i-phone). Before I get, Mobile experts of NG, kindly suggest yaar!
Sunny 21 December 2007
01:08:42 am
N95 is easily the better deal Floyd. But it kinda depends on what your basic requirements are. If you wanna jump on to the 3G(384 Kbps) bandwagon, then yes N95 is the way to go, of course N95 also supports HSDPA(1.5 Mbps) but that seems like an unlikely possibility in the Indian spectrum for about 3-4 years… IPhone only supports EDGE(2.5 G that is, 237.5 Kbps). On the mulimedia front, both phones are comparable, but with N95’s Symbian OS, you have the option of several third party applications too. Aesthetics wise,IPhone is the winner clearly, and has some nifty features like the zooming in of the touch screen characers when ou’re about to hit on them, etc etc. Except for the lack of 3G, IPhone boasts all Wi-Fi connectivity options that N95 has.
I could give you a clearer picture if you tell me the kind of budget you have in mind. If there are no constraints, then N95 it is
, but there are several other handsets which give you more bang for the buck.
FloydRulez 21 December 2007
01:24:31 am
Thanks a lot Sunny! Also, N95 has video capturing 640/480 (DVD video quality), and also boasts of 5MP, as against 1.5MP of I-phone.
Sunny 21 December 2007
01:31:28 am
Yeah Floyd, it’s clearly the better choice. I however would not depend on a cell phone for those Video recordings. Stand alone digicams and camcorders are the best for that. Also DVD quality video is 720*576(25 frames/s) at a bitrate of above 8 Mbps for PAL and 708*576(29.9 Frames/s) for NTSC. Not sure about N95 but most high end cell phones record in Mpeg format with the H.264 codec, so it’sreally not DVD quality in the true sense.
But for a all-in-one device the N95 is a nifty little gizmo.
Sunny 21 December 2007
01:36:27 am
EDIT: ‘Mpeg4 format’
rks 21 December 2007
01:38:21 am
Floyd:
See if this helps
Compare
Review
Tango 21 December 2007
01:39:33 am
Sunny -Jalane waali baat nahi hai, I have been saying this for a while that Nokia is the top seller in India.
I don’t know how it sells abroad but here its a got a reputation for reliabilty associated with it.
Sunny 21 December 2007
01:43:39 am
Tango bhai main SRK ki baat kar raha tha Nokia ki nahi
Nokia boasts of about 40% share of the worldwide market for cell phones and other convereged devices. It was as high as 50% at the 4th quarter end of 2006.
Sunny 21 December 2007
01:45:35 am
And yeah, the uneducated(technologically that is) say that Nokia is ripping the people off, when in fact there’s no manufacturer that can come close to Nokia in value for money.
rks 21 December 2007
02:44:30 am
Market Share
rockstar 21 December 2007
03:01:28 am
expected this association was started with oso only , nokia has to pull off their socks though blast has dented their image somewhat looks like they are going for reinnovation anyway they have a very strong r &d division compare to others
FloydRulez 21 December 2007
05:27:42 am
Thanks RKS, and Sunny again.
there’s no manufacturer that can come close to Nokia in value for money.
Agreed on all counts.