Nokia, a leading mobile manufacturing company is offering more that 25 different models of mobile handsets to its varied categories of customers (Mooij, 2010). This is strategically meant to meet specific needs of each group of customers. Since not everyone can be fully satisfied with homogenous or same products, groups must be identified for effective marketing. These groups must share similarities in terms of needs. In other words, Nokia has applied a marketing strategy known as ‘market segmentation’ (Mooij, 2010). A typical market segment would have somewhat similar traits in demand for the product, buying behavior, buying power, and many more characteristics (Hunt & Madhavaram, 2006). Basically, it must be noted that segmentation is always concerned with customers and markets, and not products.
For the available markets segments, Nokia has used two main categories of segmentation criteria; that is consumer characteristics -related and consumer response-related criteria. Once a specific number of customers in a market segment have been identified to share common characteristics, they are grouped into a homogenous group of people with more or less similar demand category as per their cultural orientation (Hunt & Madhavaram, 2006). Other factors that they have applied in deciding the market strategies are; psychological, personal taste, and of course the attitude of individual group towards the Nokia innovations.
Theoretically, Nokia’s marketing strategy is based on the Research-Advantage theory. This theory sees “intra-industry demand as significantly heterogeneous with respect of consumer taste and preferences” (Mooij, 2010, p.74). It therefore follows that products are viewed as bundles with certain attributes targeting specific different market segments of same industry (Kamran, 2009). This paper analyzes marketing strategies that have been applied by mobile giant company, Nokia to meet their overall business strategy.
Nokia’s Use of information in Marketing
Marketing essence is hinged on the ability of a company to acquire adequate information about customers (Hunt & Madhavaram, 2006). This is because ability to identify and satisfy the needs of the clients is based on the proper information acquisition. It therefore follows that for the marketing managers to get the needed details of customer taste and demands, and competitors, a proper data is needed that will follow with thorough analysis to ensure accurate information is established for the successive marketing strategies. Nokia slogan of connecting people to each other is linked to the information that they deem fit for their marketing goal. This information helps them to redesign and support the innovation of new products suited for their specific market segment rather than general approach.
Once they have segmented their markets, Nokia targets one or many of the markets in order to respond in a better way to their customers’ needs, notably with an aim of optimizing resource usage. In this manner, they engage in regular information search to ensure customer feedback is treated with care in their next innovation process. Since the company boasts a strong innovative team, they identify the “most innovative receptive customers” who are able to convince other customers in the value of their specific product (Kamran, 2009, p.111). It must be noted that Nokia is in an industry that has quite short life cycle; hence the need to develop its products faster requires precise information from potential clients, usually a specific limited number of customers. They therefore take into consideration the resources they would need to respond to the market demand and at the same time keeping tabs with the emerging new technologies within the industry.
Marketing Strategy and the Overall Organizational Strategy
Global mobile market is driven by customer as the force (Hunt & Madhavaram, 2006). That is, innovations and products improvements wholly rely on a specific market boundary. The overall organizational strategy of Nokia is to expand their customer base through helping people fell close to each other and especially to those who they regard dearly; increase growth of new products for wide market segments, and spearheads transformation and building of new businesses. Nokia organizational strategy is based on the business model of being “the best mobile devices regardless of the price and geographical location, provide extensive internet solutions on the mobile devices, and enter into the markets by providing business mobility solutions to the corporate users” (Kamran, 2009, p.113). They have consequently identified specific areas to meet their overall organizational strategy by concentrating on some specific strategies. Business Solutions; in their quest to find solutions to business strategies within their corporate section of the market, they have applied “Innovative Business mobility” technique (Kamran, 2009). The firm has taken advantage of its long held reputation as having a stable platform that assist in the production of very stable mobile phones fit for corporate use. They have reinforced this notion through their merger with Siemens, which spearheaded the introduction of new Nokia phones to carter for corporate clients’ needs. Mobile internet services have been adopted by Nokia. They engage in innovative ways of providing internet services to their customers through their operating systems, particularly to the high end user phones.
Generally, to meet the overall strategy, Nokia has adopted an analysis criteria and process that helps it understand the market by following five steps i.e.: developing culture of selecting a segmented criteria through the help of market information acquired; defining the segments; evaluating the business value to fit their profit motive and future expansion; selecting a particular number of segments to work with; and finally choosing of the position and marketing mix for each of its mobile products in each segment (Kamran, 2009).
Marketing Planning in the Global Context
To penetrate a global market, the generic product will depend on the national wealth in the economically heterogeneous aspects as well as cultural factors depicted by economic homogeneity (Hunt & Madhavaram, 2006). The global mobile market is highly saturated, with mobile companies from Japan, offering stiff competition to Nokia. In their global marketing plan, Nokia has approached marketing strategies by increasing and emphasizing on efficiency, without compromising on the strategy of localization of marketing efforts on separate and specific countries or regions. Nokia had introduced mobile phones with standardized international advertising, by its claim of ‘Connecting People’, a generic attribute to mobile communication to reflect the primary goal of human communication. However, they did not fail to recognize the heterogeneity of many global cultures, thus the market segmentation in terms of communication their generic slogan. The mobile phone producer adapted their product and advertising in relation to language of the specific regions or countries. They used messages such as, “you have information under your control” to reflect and invoke the feelings of specific markets (Kamran, 2009, p. 109).
While they are considered to be everywhere, mobile phones market penetration rate is still below par as far as some countries in the emerging economies are concerned. To carter for the global market, the company has incorporated a strategy to manufacture low end user phones, mainly targeting the less developed countries with limited mobile penetration. They have maintained strong focus on the innovation and development of new products to suit all the segment of the market.
E-business in Nokia Marketing Strategy
In an attempt to increase and accelerate mobile advertising, Nokia has adopted an e-business approach through its global market reach. For example, the company recently acquired Enpocket, a company that deals in the creation and delivery of target brands in advertising services through mobile to its customers (Mooij, 2010). Through this, Nokia has identified the company’s Boston headquarters as the center for its mobile ads activities. Notably, Enpocket has managed to create mobile ads for global companies like Pepsi, where they managed to target specific market segments of mobile phone holders. This is a strategy that will ensure they handle the increasing demand for mobile advertisement through internet services or short messaging techniques. They are also moving from being just mobile manufacturers to service industry, to increase their market presence globally. The other e-business is through its own created ‘OVI’ that is meant to manage internet services in its global business line.
Although internet marketing is yet to reach its peak, Nokia has approached it with a lot of vigor and is expecting to be the market leader in this promising market segment. The market leader is seen as the next big thing as it will be in high demand from marketers who want to reach specific market segment at specific locations. The GPS-enabled phones are its perfect example of phones that can be used to target specific people in specific regions for marketing strategy advancement. As far as analysts are concerned, there is a promising lucrative market for mobile marketing, giving a boost to e-businesses around the globe.
Reference
Hunt, D., & Madhavaram, S. (2006), Teaching Marketing Strategy: Using Resource-Advantage Theory as an Integrative Theoretical Foundation. Journal of Marketing Education, Vol.28 No.2, 93-105.
Kamran, M.Y. (2009), Organizational Behavior: Thought Exercise 3-Strategy. New York. Wiley Publishers.
Mooij, M. (2010), Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes. London. Sage Publishers.