After a few years of hibernation, the Nokia brand is once again getting ready to return to the smartphone industry. A couple of weeks ago, an anonymous executive at Microsoft allegedly confirmed that new Nokia phones are slated to launch by mid-2017 and various pieces are slowly falling into place for that to happen. New Nokia-branded devices will reportedly be manufactured by the Chinese tech giant Foxconn whose partner HMD Global acquired rights to Nokia’s phone business from Microsoft for $350 million back in May. The Finnish firm is currently getting ready to unveil its latest offerings to the world, and the most recent report from AdWeek suggests that HMD Global isn’t willing to embark on that endeavor on its own.
Namely, the company has reportedly hired Mother, an established international marketing agency with offices in London, New York, and Buenos Aires. In recent years, Mother has been responsible for various United Nations, IKEA, and Stella Artois marketing campaigns and the firm currently boasts the title of the largest independent agency of its kind in the United Kingdom. Sources indicate that Mother will start promoting the Nokia brand with a major marketing campaign which is slated to precede the upcoming worldwide launch of new Nokia-branded smartphones. The global campaign will begin at some point in early 2017, followed by a set of smaller promotions of individual product launches. Interestingly enough, the wording of the original report implies that HMD Global won’t be launching its upcoming smartphones at once but will instead gradually introduce them to the market throughout 2017.
Over at the HMD Global HQ in Helsinki, Finland, the company’s executives all sound rather excited about the prospect of launching a brand new lineup of Android-powered Nokia smartphones. Pekka Rantala, the recently appointed Chief Marketing Officer at the Foxconn-owned firm, stated that he believes Mother is a perfect partner for HMD Global and its efforts to revive the Nokia brand. Rantala also implied that the task of promoting new Nokia smartphones may be easier than expected given how Nokia is still an “iconic, globally recognized, and trusted brand.” Time will tell whether that’s just blind optimism or not, but one thing is certain – Nokia is coming back in a big way.