Why did the brand die?

It shouldn’t have happened!

The company had a strong culture of evolving with the changing time.
They started out in 1865 as paper manufacturers, later shifting to cables and radio phones.
Understanding what the consumer wants and evolving accordingly was engrained deep into the DNA of the company.
So much that they won the ‘Most Trusted Brand of India’ for three consecutive years.
Even the best of the market analyst would have laughed at someone saying: This brand would die in a span of next 4 years.

But that is what happened.

Nokia Telecommunication died in April 2014.

What exactly went wrong?
They were great at building their products. We still trust Nokia phones for their resilience.

Unfortunately their marketing strategies were not so resilient.

While arrogance had corrupted their service networks, the promotion effort was stretched so thin that it became difficult connecting with them. What was missing in it’s effort to reach out to consumers?

Focus.

Nokia seemed clueless about who they were, what their product was about.
Hence they faltered in conveying it to the consumer.
The same DNA that helped them thrive in the face of changing technology had imprisoned them in the time of evolving communications and connectivity.
The launch of a 42 MP camera phone when the smart phone industry market had matured far beyond the age of cool-cams was an indicator of the chaos set in the marketing department of the dying brand

If only Nokia would have understood that “You need to tell them what you are best at”.
Apple did that. They focused on design and exclusivity as their value proposition.
Google did it by democratizing the phone software and telling that through their efforts to reach out to all.

Can we say what Nokia’s value proposition was? It is not that they didn’t have it, it’s just that they didn’t convey it to those who mattered.

Focus. Communicate. Repeat.