Nokia Emerging From The Ashes Through Rebranding

Nokia is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics company that was founded in 1865. Originally, Nokia started as a pulp mill and gradually diversified into several industries including rubber, electronics, and telecommunications.

In the 1980s, Nokia shifted its focus primarily to telecommunications and became a leading player in the mobile phone market in the 1990s. Nokia was once the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones and was known for its innovative and durable devices. However, Nokia struggled to keep pace with the rapidly evolving smartphone market and eventually sold its phone business to Microsoft in 2014 for $7 billion. However, the collaboration turned out to be unsuccessful. Microsoft closed its mobile phone division a year later, and in 2016, the Finnish company acquired the business back under the name HMD Global.

Currently, Nokia primarily operates in the network infrastructure and services space, providing telecommunications equipment and solutions to customers worldwide. The company is also involved in digital health and virtual reality technologies.

Transforming The Brand With Lippincott’s Cutting Edge Design

Nokia’s logo, which had remained largely unchanged since the 1960s, has been redesigned to showcase the company’s position as a B2B tech innovation leader. To update the brand and change its outdated perception as a company that only sold durable mobile phones, Nokia enlisted the help of Lippincott, a global brand strategy and design firm.

Lippincott aimed to create a new brand identity for Nokia that would clearly convey its revised purpose as a pioneering tech innovation leader. While still paying homage to Nokia’s history, the refreshed logo retains the original sharpness of the ‘K’. However, Lippincott’s work reduces the weight of the original letters and employs lighter, more dynamic forms to give the logo a contemporary look that is synonymous with high technology. The agency hopes that the new logo will soften the logo’s once-heavy industrial feel and signal Nokia’s evolution as a cutting-edge tech company.

The Unique Mix of Design and Technology 

In addition to conveying Nokia’s belief in collaboration, Lippincott aimed to use an optical play called Apophenia to create the logo. Each individual letter was transformed into simpler digital forms, where the human eye completes the invisible connections to spell out ‘Nokia.’ The new logo is designed to be dynamic, digital-friendly, and optimized for motion, standing in sharp contrast to the rest of the tech industry. It generally appears as white against a kaleidoscope palette of colors.

According to Melissa Schoeb, Nokia’s chief corporate affairs officer, the brand refresh marks a transformative moment in the company’s history. She believes that the updated logo will help Nokia be recognized by existing and prospective customers as the B2B technology innovation leader they are today. Schoeb also stated that this is a bold step in Nokia’s journey and that it is their time to step forward confidently with a brand that represents who they are today and who they strive to become.

Company’s Vision For The Future

Nokia believes that network technology is changing and becoming intertwined with the cloud, citing the exponential potential of digital and the rise of “networks that think, sense, and act.” It has predicted that networks will increasingly be opened up and innovation with APIs will be significant. However, the brand also identified that open interfaces as they exist now are completely insufficient and mentioned how it aims to create a “network as a code.”

There was a time when Nokia was synonymous with mobile phones. From being the market leader for years to completely failing to adapt to the changing market, Nokia saw its twists and turns. While it is adamant to position itself in the B2B technology innovation market, it would be interesting to watch how it competes with the existing industry leaders in Silicon Valley. For more of such intriguing stories of brands and personalities, subscribe to World Brand Affairs. We bring you the most inspiring and informative insights from the Marketing Domain across the globe.