Abstract

This case is about Nokia Corporation’s (Nokia) strategies to revive the ‘Nokia’ brand. Despite being the market leader in the mobile phone market since 1998, the company saw a decline in its brand value since the early 2000s. The year 2004, in particular, saw major erosion in Nokia’s brand value as well as its market share. Since 2005, the company started taking various initiatives that went a long way in reviving the ‘Nokia’ brand. In addition to focusing on innovative products, it decided to move beyond umbrella branding and introduced sub brands. The ‘Nseries’ sub brand was used for the high end multimedia phones which had features such as high powered digital cameras and portable digital music players. Nseries was targeted at the young and tech-savvy customers. Another sub brand, Eseries, was targeted at business users. In 2007, Nokia entered the Internet services market with the launch of another sub brand ‘Ovi’. Ovi was an umbrella brand for a range of Internet services such as online music store, a navigation system, and a gaming service called ‘N-Gage Arena. Analysts felt that the company did this in order to compete with Apple Inc. that had entered the mobile phone market with the launch of the iPhone. Analysts felt that the sub brands, Nseries in particular, went a long way in reviving the mother brand and also brought back the younger buyers who were moving away from ‘Nokia’ in favour of its rivals such as Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand the issues and challenges faced by a mature brand. Understand the reasons for the decline in Nokia’s brand value in the early 2000s and how Nokia revived the brand. Understand the advantage and disadvantages of umbrella branding. Understand the

Keywords

Brand revival, Branding, Umbrella branding , Brand-building, Mother brand, Consumer perceptions, Sub brand, Positioning, Lifestyle positioning, Brand value, Innovation, New product development, Mobile phone market, Market leader, Organizational culture, Nseries, Eseries, Ovi, Motorola, iPhone, Nokia, Samsung, Macintosh, Apple, Sony Ericsson, LG