Nokia Tube - Nice phone, shame about the party
Nokia finally revealed why it is that the new XpressMusic 5800 phone was called The Tube when it was in its design phase, as a code name - because the Finnish phone giant has released a new dance called the Tube, which has its own five location UK tour, and a student dance competition - all to advertise its new top music handset.
The details were released over the weekend at www.nokiatubedance.com where you can find out the steps to the Tube Dance, and watch some videos of various minor celebrities trying their hands (and feet) at the dance. Nokia will be taking over venues in London, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Cardiff to promote the Tube, and hired celebrity choreographers to design the dance.
Nokia has created a Facebook page for the Tube Dance and is inviting students to upload their own versions, for the world to choose between, in order to win a Nokia funded party of your lifetime - we presume at one of those fives venues, or something similar, as it is limited to 29 universities, mostly around those towns. Not quite sure why Nokia has decided that it must be students that enter, and not just young people - seems to be a bit elitist.
Celebrity judges will be appointed and Nokia says that it is looking for the craziest outfits, the most bizarre locations, the most people dancing at once, or the funniest video.
This is walking the line between cool, hip promotion, or the biggest phone marketing disaster that ever lived. Phone companies just aren't cool and there's nothing worse than a phone company that isn't cool, trying too hard to be cool. We'll be interested in whether or not this promotion pans out and has an Apple-like effect on sales. When Nokia launched Ovi in the UK, it took over the old Billingsgate market, the same location as Apple used for the launch of iTunes UK, and ever since then it has been trying to make out that it is iTunes younger, cooler brother.
However if we are wrong about this and half the student in the country end up doing the Tube Dance, then this will be a blueprint for other launches around the world, something brash and in your face, which is at least a new tone for Nokia to take.
