CASE STUDY: How Nokia captures the Qwerty device category

Background
Recognising the strong competition and upcoming opportunities for Qwerty devices in the Indonesian market, Nokia aims to hijack the Qwerty category by introducing a fresh approach to launch the new Nokia Asha range mobile phones.

Aim
The campaign aimed to position the Nokia Asha range phones as part of a cohesive portfolio, with clear brand personality and benefits and to increase brand preference.

Execution
The campaign focused on online because Indonesia has one of the largest global populations on Facebook and Twitter. Indonesians are particularly receptive to online socialising, and many youths see social media as an everyday necessity to keep in touch with one another.

Qwerty phones have also dominated the mobile category in Indonesia, and hence the ability to connect through social media on mobile is an essential part of their communications arsenal.

At the pre-launch phase, the contest invited Facebook users to submit pictures of Q, W, E, R, T, Y human-shaped letters and the “Qwerty” human-shaped word. At the launch phase, the idea is to own and transform the word “Qwerty” into a common verb and usage, such as “Facebook Me” or “Whatsapp me”. The public was invited to vote for their favorite, and the winner won a trip to Hong Kong.

The campaign featured the Qwerty Man, a newly created persona. He interacted with the audience through various social communication channels like Facebook, Twitter, SMS and WhatsApp, where users could “Qwerty” him to send challenge requests.

Nokia and partner agencies also selected 10 of the best challenges for Qwerty Man to perform, all recorded on video and shared on YouTube and on the microsite.

Results
Within the first 24 hours, Nokia Indonesia gained over 3,000 registered users and received more than 1,000 challenges for the Qwerty Man.

It received more than 900 pictures of Q, W, E, R, T & Y human-formed letters in a week; while more than 13,000 challenges were submitted and over 300,000 unique visitors visited the website in the first 1.5 week.

Two weeks after the campaign launch, there were 16,000 new fans on Nokia Indonesia Facebook and 1,000 new followers on Twitter.

Total unique visitors were 487,926, and total complete registration reached 87 per cent above target. Total completed video views were 274% above target.

The campaign achieved sales objectives of devices within nine weeks for Asha 303.