I have always (and always) criticized Nokia for its super mediocre launch strategy (read: One Damn GTM Lesson that Nokia and Blackberries of the world can learn from Apple iPhone 4 Launch), 
but to go by Lumia launch announcements, Nokia seems to have finally found a sweet spot in its launch strategy.
That is – using its retail presence.
While I won’t comment on Lumia series of devices (Pluggd.in team has been busy with Hackathon/UnP, so couldn’t make it to the launch event), but here is what Nokia is doing as part of Lumia launch in India
- Every single Nokia employee will visit the Nokia store on first day of Nokia Lumia launch in India.
- 12500 trained brand advocates in India for Nokia Lumia for retail.
- 5000 retail outlets in India for Nokia Lumia.
- Nokia Lumia has 750 locally relevant apps in India, out of the 35000 apps globally.[source]
In short, Nokia is trying to build a great retail experience and is leveraging its own strength of retail presence. And importantly, the company is training advocates for the device, instead of relying purely on WoM for feature description/reviews (which was the case with failed products like N8/N900).
I have been to several Nokia events where the disconnect between product managers and marketing teams were as distinct as it could be – and that was precisely because of lack of training as far as product messaging was concerned (in some cases, product managers were asking each others’ whether the feature was really present or there is some mistake from the communications team).
For Nokia, Lumia is a desperate move and while Nokia hasn’t yet announced the Lumia price in India, I’d certainly hope that the same will be done within a week’s time (when the buzz is still around) – just to complete the GTM cycle.
As far as Nokia’s partner Microsoft is concerned, they are of course aggressive with ‘i unlock joy’ strategy wherein they are giving away Windows Phone devices if you port two Android apps.
Can two B-players take-on the A player? You will have to wait and watch.
