The Marketing Plan for Nokia in North America

Marketing Plan

Executive Summary

This marketing plan focuses on the smartphone market in North America. It is based on an experiential image branding approach intended to generate awareness, long-lasting customer relationship, and brand loyalty comparable to that of competitors in North America. Currently, Nokia is the market leader in the global mobile industry, with great success excluding North America. The reason for that includes increased competition with Apple and Samsung, out-of-date Symbian OS, low brand exposure and internal problems. This marketing plan conducts an in-depth analysis of the internal and external environment, competitors and consumers. Segmentation of North America consumers reveals that Generation Y and Z are Nokia's target market. Among them, low income groups specifically students is the main target audience.

Nokia's overall objective is to develop and maximize brand exposure in order to increase brand loyalty, market share, and revenue in North America. Within one year, Nokia needs to drastically to drive brand exposure to North Americans while creating a student-friendly concept that highlights Nokia's durability and enhanced OS and applications through the collaboration with Microsoft. Additionally, Nokia will reallocate its R&D funds to accommodate the growth in predicted consumer demand, intense advertising campaigns and new relationships with major mobile product carriers in North America.

We recommend repositioning Nokia as a brand of low cost and high quality in smartphone market. To achieve that, Nokia needs to efficiently utilize its collaboration with Microsoft focusing on the Windows OS and continuously produce the durable hardware quality Nokia is known for. This detailed marketing plan orients Nokia to appeal to students while focusing on Nokia's product concept, affordability, and durability.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary 1

1 Problem Recognition 3

1.1 Opportunity Recognition 3

2 Externalities 4

2.1 PEST Analysis 4

2.2 Competitor Analysis 5

3 SWOT Analysis 7

3.1 Strengths and Weaknesses 7

3.2 Opportunities and Threats 7

4 Customer Analysis 8

4.1 Segmentation and Selection 8

5 Marketing Objectives 9

5.1 Financial Objective 9

5.2 Marketing Objective 9

5.3 Strategic Objective 9

6 Target Market Profile 9

7 Positioning 10

7.1 Positioning Strategy 10

8 Marketing Mix 11

8.1 Product 11

8.2 Price 11

8.3 Place 11

8.4 Promotion 11

9 Implementation and Evaluation 12

9.1 Pro-Forma Income Statement 12

9.2 Cost/Benefit Analysis 13

9.3 Action Plan 14

9.3 Contingency Plan 15

References: 16

1 Problem Recognition

Nokia is a world-wide leader in the mobile market. It has success globally excluding North America. Nokia's lack of brand exposure in North America results in lack of customer awareness. Moreover, Nokia's struggle with bankruptcy rumors since 2011 has further decreased the company's global sales and market share since 2008 (NOK: Stock Quote, 2012). Shareholders' fear of the potential bankruptcy has only increased the damage to the company in terms of customer loyalty and attainment. This has resulted in the loss of profits, with Nokia having -$1.1 billion after taxes (Nokia's 2011 Interim Report, 2012), as well as a decrease in global sales -- particularly in the United States and Canada, where their market penetration had dropped from 5.5% in 2005 to less than 3% in 2010. This is shown in Figure 1.1:

Figure 1.1

Nokia's company share in North America

1.1 Opportunity Recognition

These problems that Nokia has had to deal with could be a number of reasons, including brand awareness in North America, lags in customers trend recognition, and failure to position themselves.

In spite of the decrease in market share, Nokia has much room to grow with their newfound alliance with Microsoft (Microsoft News Center, 2011). The collaboration with Microsoft will be used as a leverage to entice students with the Windows 8 OS platform. Furthermore, an improved management to meet consumer demands, and increased promotional campaigns to increase brand awareness.

2 Externalities

2.1 PEST Analysis

2.2 Competitor Analysis

Figure 2.2.1 North America Manufacturer Share: Q3 2011

Retrieved from Online Marketing Trends, 2011

In 2011, Nokia is still the top global mobile manufacturer but its market share is relatively low in North America with only 12%, including both smartphones and feature phones (Online Marketing Trends, 2011).

Figure 2.2.2 Nokia smartphone market share in North America

Retrieved from Strategy Analytics, 2012

As illustrated, failing to capitalize on the growing demand for smartphones, Nokia's smartphone market share has been on a steady decline for the past 4 years in the smartphone-hungry North American market (Strategy Analytics, 2012).

Figure 2.2.3 North America OS Share: Q4 2011

Retrieved from Nielsen, 2012

Smartphones made up 54% of all mobile phone sales in North America (SmartOnline, 2011). Nielsen's figures show Android as the leading OS with 46.3%