As far as hotly anticipated gadgets go, the Nokia N95 is up there with the best. Whereas previous models in the successful NSeries have been marketed more as phones, as music devices or as video cameras, the N95 is doing away with all boxes whatsoever in favour of a more integrated approach to functionality, and marketing. This thing does EVERYTHING.
The launch campaign broke last week across TV, cinema, print, outdoor, retail, and experiential, all of which is based around the strapline, ‘Nokia N95. It’s what computers have become.’ Although it’s fronted by some lovely traditional work (click the image to the right to view the TV ad by Lowe London) it’s how they’ve amplified this campaign that really floated the Contagious boat.
Ambient work housed around the UK sees the ‘Mobile Museum of ExtinctTechnology’ showcasing tongue-in-cheek illustrations of situations that now, thankfully, have been relegated to the past courtesy of the N95. For example, one execution shows an eighties yuppie screaming into his mobile phone in a crowded wine bar, another a hapless employee stranded in his office after hours.
But it’s with the music that things start to get REALLY interesting. The enigmatic voiceover from the commercial (provided by actor Harry Dean Stanton, fact fans) has been distributed to various supastar DJs in the dance community to remix, including the wonderful Rui da Silva. The result is a number of tracks featuring the Nokia aural branding, seeded onto dancefloors worldwide – a fantastic way to reinforce a message spawned in traditional media and amplified in non-traditional.
Rachel Wright, marketing manager at Nokia, told Contagious: ‘The campaign has been developed to reflect this diversity and bring the experiences it offers to life. Music’s one great way to reflect the enthusiasm of that experience.’
A couple of weeks ago we also highlighted Great Pockets, a website designed by the Swedish-based FarFar to show how outdated it is to be trying to cram all your gadgets into one pocket when an N95 would do just as well. www.greatpockets.com.
Creative on the central campaign came from R/GA, Lowe, Jack Morton and Draft.










