🔍 Marketing Strategy Evaluation: Is Your Strategy Working?

Marketing strategy is a powerful tool. It can very quickly lift you off your knees if a competent strategy is chosen, but it can instantly lower you there, or even on your stomach, if the strategy is chosen incorrectly. Accordingly, an assessment of the marketing strategy is needed. Moreover, the assessment must be independent and carried out by a disinterested party, because an interested party will interpret everything in its favor, even if the disadvantages of the strategy are obvious.

It is normal to interpret everything in your favor, such is the human psyche. So you should treat it not as evil, but as a working moment – calmly. Only in this state can the assessment of the marketing strategy be adequate and useful. As a clear example, it is proposed to conduct an assessment of the Nokia marketing strategy. Why Nokia? Because the case is very interesting.

Assessing Nokia's marketing strategy is a very interesting, but at the same time very difficult task, because the situation with it is very difficult, and the company is very difficult. It is also interesting for its marketing, because at one time Nokia's marketing was about as strong as Coca-Cola's marketing and much stronger than Apple's marketing.

The assessment will have to begin in an unconventional way, recalling the popular expression “from rags to riches”. This expression reflects the fact that sometimes it happens that a certain person or a certain company accidentally gets into elite circles from the very bottom. There are more than enough such stories in any country in the world at any time. They were, are and will be. But there are also reverse stories, when they go from princes to dirt.

In general, this company began at the end of the 19th century. They also happen quite often in different countries and not only with people, but with entire communities of people, with entire companies, if we take business. But there is an even more interesting situation when some people fall “from rags to riches”, and then back from princes to rags, and quite quickly. This situation is very unpleasant, but it does happen.

Perhaps, such a situation will soon happen to one very well-known company at present, which has been on everyone's lips for the last 10 years. This company has known for a long time how to eliminate a competitor and has been doing it. Only the lazy have not talked about it for the last 10 years, although 30 years ago, few people knew about this company, because the goods it produced then were not quite such that they could be talked about. Only a narrow circle of specialists knew about it, a very narrow circle of very narrow specialists.

But then this company started to deal with goods, which became fashionable to talk about, because the presence of this goods showed a high level and status of a person. Moreover, in this market, one can say, it became known precisely as a company that went from rags to riches, because in the area where it achieved the most significant success, and, initially, compared to similar companies, it was, one could say, a nobody.

In general, this company began at the end of the 19th century. It began as a paper mill and came to the area where it achieved the greatest success and fame only at the end of the 80s of the 20th century. As many have already guessed, we are talking about the Nokia company, which is known primarily as a manufacturer of mobile phones. This company has long used the strategy of market expansion.

This allowed it to enter the mobile phone market, among other things. Having entered the mobile phone market, Nokia soon became the leader and held the lead for a very long time. Many tried to challenge its leadership, but no one succeeded. At the time of their greatest popularity, Nokia phones were a kind of Bentley or Porsche among phones.

Everyone who had other phones still wanted to get a Nokia, because Nokia is number one. Many considered owners of phones of other brands to be losers. This, so to speak, public censure contributed to the fact that everyone wanted to buy a phone with the Nokia inscription, or dreamed about it if they did not have enough money.

Nokia was able to take first place in the mobile phone market because it chose the most optimal strategy and hit the bull's eye of the market through it. It was able to ride the most popular idea that could possibly exist in the mobile phone market. The idea was mentioned in connection with the fact that marketing strategy is a specific idea for working in the market and a plan for its implementation.

The mobile phone market is based on the idea of ​​”always and everywhere connected”. Nokia's secret was that it managed to convince consumers that its phones best matched this idea, and therefore the needs of the market. The idea of ​​”always and everywhere connected” also means that the phone must be reliable and have a good signal from mobile towers.

How to evaluate a marketing strategy

Nokia phones were the best at achieving this result, and rightly so, they sold more phones than other brands. The idea that Nokia chose was the strongest idea for this market, and accordingly, Nokia's marketing strategy for the mobile phone market was the strongest and most effective.

Nokia also benefited from the fact that the idea of ​​”always and everywhere connected” was not very active in interacting with other ideas to form new ideas. Accordingly, this idea was not very susceptible to strong modernization.

It was modernized insignificantly and this did not cause serious changes in the needs of consumers, but it is the idea that causes needs after it is introduced into the consumer. If the idea introduced into the consumer changes, then his need changes. In other words, it was the idea of ​​”always and everywhere in touch” that dominated the minds of the overwhelming majority of consumers, as a result of which other market segments were insignificant.

The main consumers of the mobile phone market were the bearers of the idea of ​​”always and everywhere in touch” and they needed phones that matched their needs. All this gave Nokia an overwhelming advantage over other market players. They, trampling each other, tried to become at least the second numbers, because they had no other options in such a situation.

This could have continued indefinitely, if not for the strong and constant salivation of Apple in general and Steve Jobs in particular, who were haunted by a market of over 30 billion US dollars. Of course, anyone would salivate at the sight of a number with so many zeros.

This is a colossal amount of money that Apple was missing out on, and the company could not tolerate it. Apparently, Apple's assessment of Nokia's marketing strategy showed that it could not compete with Nokia in the mobile phone market, which is based on the idea of ​​”always and everywhere connected.” As a result, having found no way to compete for consumers who have implemented the idea of ​​”always and everywhere connected,” Apple made a knight's move.

It generated and introduced into people's minds a completely new idea and created a virtually new market, a market in which it gained an absolute advantage. Now Apple has hit the bull's eye, now Apple has been able to ride the basic idea for the market.

The new idea generated by Apple is the idea of ​​”eliminating the information inequality”. This idea is basic, just like the idea of ​​”always and everywhere connected”. The essence of this idea is that people for various reasons have different amounts of information, and the person who has less information at a given moment is considered a kind of inferior person or, as it is fashionable to say, a loser.

Apple, in the person of the iPhone, and then in the person of the iPad, created perfect devices for “eliminating information inequality”, as well as a media environment that contains all the current information available at the moment, access to which is carried out through its devices. It is clear that the phone cannot solve this problem in principle, it can only be solved by a special device, which is commonly called a smartphone.

This is the reason why Nokia started having problems. The essence of the problems is that under the influence of the new idea, the needs of consumers changed and for this reason the old marketing plan no longer worked. Consumers were no longer interested in being in touch always and everywhere, they became interested in keeping up with the information rush so as not to be losers.

At the same time, Apple, just like Nokia in its time, convinced people that its iPhone best corresponds to the idea of ​​”eliminating the information inequality.” This allowed Apple to stake out its leadership in this market. It set the standards for the market and manages their changes for itself. Accordingly, other market players will now constantly lag behind.

If Apple continues in the same spirit as it started, then it will be fundamentally impossible to catch up with it. In fact, it is Apple that is the owner of this market, develops it and, as the owner, has the largest sales. Moreover, Apple's leadership is not only psychological, but also actual, in terms of sales volumes, as well as in terms of the amount of earnings from one phone. Due to this, Apple's earnings when introducing new models sometimes reach almost one billion US dollars in three days, and this is a truly enormous figure.

All this allows us to say that Nokia's leadership in the mobile phone market has come to an end, because this market is deflating in favor of another market. And it crept up, as usual, unnoticed, because it was coming from the wrong side. Now the Finnish company's management will be drooling. It is making chaotic moves to sort out the current situation, for example, it is going to switch to an operating system from Microsoft.

However, this will further aggravate its position, because the most important thing in a market formed around the ideas of “eliminating information inequality” is the presence of a media environment. Without its own media environment, Nokia turns from a master into a mercenary. In fact, Nokia is now losing its independence in favor of Microsoft and will work for this company, supplying devices for access to the media environment created by the American company.

It should also be noted here that due to the fact that Samsung does not have its own media environment, despite the fact that it shows good sales results, it is not really a leader in the new market. It will be able to become one only when it promotes its operating system to the required level and creates its own market, and does not work in the Apple market.

The situation Nokia has found itself in can only be described as slavery. Its position is unenviable. First of all, this is due to the fact that Microsoft basically does not care who will produce devices to “eliminate the information inequality.” Now it could be Nokia, then it could be any other company, for example, the one that can offer a decent device at a lower price.

This is why Nokia has problems. Thus, Microsoft will be able to dictate to Nokia favorable conditions that may be unfavorable for the latter. Moreover, at any moment Nokia may be notified that Microsoft no longer needs its services, and in general, media standards may be changed, as a result of which Nokia devices will not be able to access them. Accordingly, not only the company's shareholders will suffer, but also consumers, and consumers to a greater extent.

An assessment of Nokia's current marketing strategy suggests that Nokia's profits and revenues are likely to continue to decline. Previously, it could charge extra money for its reputation as a leader, but now it is only a leader in the mobile phone market, which is constantly shrinking. Accordingly, the amount of money for reputation will continue to decline in the mobile phone market, and it will not exist at all in the smartphone market.

This will lead to the fact that, most likely, the quality of Nokia phones will deteriorate, because they will have to economize. Perhaps this process has already begun, because companies that sell mobile phones are already reporting that buyers are dissatisfied with the quality of Nokia phones, in other words, as it has become fashionable to say, “Nokia is not the same anymore.” Accordingly, if the situation does not change, we can soon expect sensational news that Nokia is leaving the mobile device markets.

You can guess as much as you want why this happened. But the real reason is that Nokia missed the moment of introducing a new idea and forming a new market. Apparently, its owners do not know noomarketing, but work according to old marketing technologies. Accordingly, the strategy of target marketing is not available for Nokia.

In turn, Apple clearly has new marketing technologies similar to noomarketing, because it did everything not just correctly, but super correctly. It not only created a new market, but created a market where it cannot have competitors in the near future. Now it skims the cream, very thick and tasty cream. Others get only milk, and often not fresh, but sour milk.

There are only two ways out of this situation that will not force Nokia to leave the market. The first is that Nokia's management should sit down at the table and start modeling the future, using new marketing technologies. It is not clear, however, whether they will be able to do this on their own. In the process of modeling, it is necessary to determine what ideas the idea of ​​”eliminating the information inequality” can interact with in order to form new ideas.

This will allow us to determine which segments can be created. After that, we need to start creating new market segments, and we need to make sure that these segments are capacious enough compared to the base segment, i.e. the segment formed on the initial idea of ​​this market, the idea of ​​”eliminating the information inequality”. As a result, we will be able to become a leader again, if not in the market, then at least in the segments and regain our former reputation.

The second way out is to generate a new idea and on its basis create a new, unique market, on the basis of opportunities that only Nokia has, but Apple and other companies do not. This is a longer and more laborious way, but at the same time more reliable in the long term, because it will allow to create a strategic competitive advantage, similar to what the company already had in the mobile phone market.

In this case, there will also be a chance to regain leadership and start charging for reputation again, significantly increasing profits. However, everything indicates that it will be difficult to do this, because everything indicates that Nokia simply does not have the appropriate specialists, those who own new marketing technologies, and it has not even looked for them. This means that such a scenario is quite unlikely.