Back in the summer of 2007, when the first generation iPhone was barely two months old, Nokia gave birth to the Ovi brand. Finnish for “door”, Ovi was supposed to be the the umbrella brand that brought together N-Gage (discontinued), Nokia Music (discontinued), Nokia Maps, and the various other online services that would launch between then and now. Starting this summer Nokia will not be using the Ovi branding anymore and will instead just call their services “Nokia”. How much time and money was wasted trying to get Ovi to become an internationally recognized and appreciated brand? While we don’t have the numbers, we’re going to assume billions of Euros. So now the important question, why?
“We have made the decision to change our service branding from Ovi to Nokia. By centralizing our services identity under one brand, not two, we will reinforce the powerful master brand of Nokia and unify our brand architecture – while continuing to deliver compelling opportunities and experiences for partners and consumers alike. The reasons for this decision includes the fact that Nokia is a well-known and highly-loved brand the world over. Our mobile experiences are tightly integrated with our devices – there is no longer a differentiation. For example, if consumers want the best mobile navigation experience, they know it’s a Nokia that they can rely on. These last few years, and moving forward, our mission remains unchanged: we will continue our work to deliver compelling, unified mobile service offerings and next-generation, disruptive technologies.” — Nokia Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Jerri DeVard.
There’s a catch to all of this of course, and that’s Microsoft. Now that Nokia is going to use their operating system, Windows Phone, what room do current and future Nokia services have to grow when nearly everything on your new smartphone is tied into an already existing service from the folks at Redmond? The answer is none.
[Anssi Vanjoki pictured above. He sadly no longer works at Nokia.]