Nokia's Pitch, in a Nutshell: Think Different, Use Windows

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By Todd Wasserman2014-04-28 19:03:08 UTC

In a demonstration of how much the tech world has changed over the past few years, consider the pitch for Nokia's latest ad: "Think different, use Microsoft's Windows Phone OS."

The ad, the first since Nokia officially became a unit of Microsoft last week, presents a black-and-white world in which only Nokia phone users exist in living color. To underscore the point, the ad's soundtrack is the Kinks' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else."

See also: Windows Phone 8.1 Review: Cortana Leads a Feature-Packed Update

With a global market share of around 3%, Windows Phone presents a marketing challenge. In the past, Microsoft and Nokia have used a triangulation strategy, presenting the brand as a rational voice in the market compared to Apple and Android fanboys.

For longtime tech watchers, Microsoft's evocation of its underdog status is deeply ironic since the company has held a commanding lead in PCs since the early 1990s. Microsoft's WIndows still has 90.9% share on desktop vs. 7.5% for Apple's Macintosh. However, desktop computers have become a stagnant product category while smartphones and tablets — two segments in which Apple is a dominant player and Microsoft is not — have experienced strong growth.

Topics: Advertising, Business, Marketing, Microsoft, Nokia, smartphone

Image: Casey Rodgers/Associated Press