Marketing FAIL: Nokia tries to get bloggers excited about the N97 Mini, but forgets to ship the device

Remember the marketing campaign I mentioned last week, the one that Nokia (NYSE: NOK) was planning in London? It was supposed to be for the Nokia N97 Mini, but apparently Nokia could not finish the devices in time according to “Phat^Trance” from Daily Mobile:

Some of you guys may already know that I got back from Nokia’s “Secret Event” in London, which was OVI Maps with WomWorld, at 2am this morning. It was really nice to meet other Nokia bloggers, especially my buddy Ibrahim from The Nokia Review. The purpose of this short trip was to discover OVI Maps in London with the help of the Nokia N97 mini! However due to the delayed launch by Nokia we were all given the Nokia N97 instead.

This makes you wonder, how far ahead are these marketing campaigns actually planned, and is the company having trouble shipping smartphones on time? During Nokia’s Q3 2009 conference call, the Nokia E72 was brought up. It was supposed to be a Q3 product, but it has slipped into Q4. The Nokia N900 has the same story, it was supposed to ship in October, but has now been pushed back to November. The Nokia N97 Mini, even in prototype form, should have been at this event, but it wasn’t. Odd considering the Nokia Flagship Store in London told customers that the Nokia N97 Mini would be in the shop on October 24th, a mere 48 hours after this marketing campaign occurred.

Is something the matter in Finland? Yes, seasonal depression is kicking in for everyone, myself included, and the problem is only being exacerbated due to daylight savings time, which kicked in last night, but in this competitive landscape it is becoming mission critical that deadlines are met and projects ship on time.

Anyway, for those of you wondering why the Nokia N97 Mini was created in the first place, here is a brief, yet highly informative video created by Mark Guim from The Nokia Blog: