An ode to Nokia – one of my very first cell phones ever (you do the math). Before the touch screen, before the flip phones, before the iPhones, there was Nokia.

Nokia was founded back in 1865 and was originally a small paper production plant located in southwest Finland. They re-invented themselves in the 1960s as a telecommunications company and by 1998, they became a leader in the global market.

Their position remained strong and by 2006, they decided to move forward with more ambitious projects. Partnering with Director, Spike Lee, Nokia created the first ever mobile film making project, with a goal of collaborating on user-generated creative content through mobile filming. “Content Marketing” – a term we now hear more often.

The Push Snowboarding Campaign was created to market the Nokia N8, a touchscreen smartphone that ran on the Symbian 3 mobile operating system. It was a great innovation of the time and it’s success would depend on whether customers saw the phone as significantly better than it’s rivals.

Photo Source: Geek.com

How did the Nokia N8 fare against the competition in the smartphone market?

Using an Avant-Garde Social Media Strategy, Nokia marketed their N8 to consumers by showcasing its ability to capture, communicate, and share information within the communities they value. In 2010, research indicated that snowboarding was one of the most watched sports at the Winter Olympics & Nokia later partnered with Burton, a snowboard company, for their Push Snowboarding campaign.

With Burton’s expertise in making snowboards, Nokia created unique sensors that could be attached to any snowboard, allowing snowboarders to measure speed, rush, heart rate, pressure, and orientation. This information can then be shared in social media and compared with peers and snowboarding champions.

Photo Source: The Nokia Push Burton Collaboration | Snowlife

How cool would it be to measure your speed and other attributes compared to some Olympic snowboarding athletes?

Photo Source: LA Times

Nokia took a bold step with their Push Snowboarding campaign, which allowed them to successfully integrate social media to develop their product and generate awareness/engagement.

By blending social and traditional media, Nokia was able to do what no other company has done before, giving the world a glimpse of what to expect for the future.

Featured Image Photo Source: BlessThisStuff.com