Brand Publishing Strategy: Nokia Networks (Futurithmic)
Nokia is one of the largest and most recognized telecommunications companies in the world. But they had a problem. Most people know of Nokia’s mobile devices, but are not as aware of their work in infrastructure and tech development—even though they’re ranked as the world’s third-largest network equipment manufacturer.
Hoping to establish themselves as thought leaders in the telco industry, Nokia launched a documentary series produced by Shaftesbury Films (Murdoch Mysteries, Hudson and Rex, Frankie Drake Mysteries) and hosted by journalist Michael Hainsworth (BNN Bloomberg, Geeks and Beats).
But there was another issue: they had nowhere to house the content. Without a platform, they would be forced to publish on third-party sites, with little control over what happens to their content. We offered a solution and pitched Futurithmic, a brand publication that would build on the video content already in production while providing insights from respected industry innovators.
Our goal was to create a daily, multi-format brand publication that would:
Increase awareness and trust in the Nokia brand.
Increase consideration by CSP (communications service providers) decision-makers towards Nokia as a trusted partner.
Influence the audience to decide to choose Nokia, also.
Drive qualified leads to Nokia’s sales team.
Hit a 3-month target of 350,000 digital engagements.
Hit a 6-month target of 900,000 digital engagements.
We began with deep audience research and identified the following key audiences: the Open Innovators (key CSP decision-makers), the Management Consultants, and Future Leaders. We then conducted thorough market research using social listening tools to understand what mattered most to these key audiences. We found the audience had strong interests in the social, technological, environmental, economic, and political factors in the digital world. From there, we developed a cohesive brand strategy—creating a name, tone and voice, look and feel, website, social channels, boosting and ads budget, strategy, and many (many) other elements. Our preferred platforms were chosen based on where the key audience is most active; LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and to a lesser extent, Facebook and Instagram.
It was important to build Futurithmic as a separate hub with editorial independence (much like Fujitsu’s i-CIO, or Adobe’s CMO.com) to build trust, increase discoverability, and allow us flexibility in leveraging the brand in the future.
Today, Futurithmic is a go-to source for CSP leadership. Through high-quality content that includes video, a podcast, an online publication and responsible reporting, we established credibility and awareness for Nokia.
Results:
From February 14 - August 14 2019, we achieved impressive results:
Futurithmic.com
Users: 235,987
Page Views: 388,801
Sessions Per User: 1.48
Pages/ Session 1.11
Avg. Time on Site: 1:00
Bounce Rate: 44.07%
2 Minute Conversions: 23,152
Conversion Rate: 6.62%
Organic Social
Impressions: 29,048,969
Engagements: 2,212,179 (exceeding our targets greatly!)
Followers: 6,548
YouTube Video Views: 1,146,131
Paid
Google Ads
Impressions: 9,722,315
Clicks: 76,087
Impressions: 10,764,402
Clicks: 8,080
Impressions: 11,614,005
links:
Futurithmic (Nokia Brand Publication)
YouTube (Video Series created by Shaftesbury Films)