Nokia designs a customer
Nokia has announced that it’s acquiring gate5, a Berlin company that makes mapping, routing and navigation software for mobile devices. Some might look at this as just another high tech acquisition, where a larger company buys a needed technology, but I see a deeper meaning. To me, this is part of a strategic brand play. Not in the old-fashioned brand sense, where a company is acquired for its name or its share of market, but in the new brand sense where the acquisition aims create a new (Nokia) brand that unlocks customer potential.
Nokia is designing a new customer for the Nokia brand. This acquisition is one of the pieces to create that customer in the flesh.
Nokia re-creates itself in the image of its customers
I remember Nokia when they were still known as a pulp and paper giant who also made rubber boots. The only way they could get from way back “there” to “here” is by connecting
“Nokia” to a string of strategic customer models they could create, and progressively grow. Some companies (one in Redmond comes to mind) try to create customers in their own image. These guys from Finland do the reverse: Nokia creates (and re-creates) itself in the image of its customers.
The “computer,” the “desktop,” and the “cellphone” are now in the pulp and paper stage. The next step will be a nonlinear leap. You can wait for a new customer to arise by accident, or you can actively create that customer by seeding new cultural dimensions to shape demand.
Products die out. Customers live on.
Companies can take a short view or a long view of their markets. There’s a big difference between the two. In the short view, the company just wants to create a sale and grab the cash. In the long view, the company wants to create a customer, in essence by freeing customers from what’s holding them back, and by enabling customers to grow new markets through the product or service offered. The first is a product approach; the second is a brand approach. Is one better? Products die out. Customers live on.
Where gate5 fits in
Gate5′s mobile mapping software combines satellite navigation with what you want to do. Their CEO says:
Based on maps and routing functionality, there are countless useful features for mobile users; e.g. travel guides, search what is around you including restaurants, hotels, shops, etc. anything you need in your surroundings.
Define the person who will want to do these things, and the freedoms they will need to do them effortlessly, and you can glimpse the next iteration of the Nokia brand. Yes, it is platform driven: by brand platforms, and by customer platforms.
Companies are in the culture business
The bottom line is that high-value companies are in the culture business. That’s why they have brands: to free customers to grow themselves, in ways that make a market. Your brand is a customer ticket to go places. Companies with antiquated, box-bound brands face a future of falling behind.
