On my way to the future technology conference in Oxford I’ve made a detour to London for some sightseeing. Walking down Regent street, I noticed that the Apple store and the Nokia store are just accross the street from each other so I visited both to get a feeling for how each markets their prodcuts.
While Nokia obviously only markets their mobile phones, Apple’s focus is mostly on their computers and peripherals. The iPhone is everywhere in the shop but most people seem to be more interested in the computers and the demos which are either one on one or for groups. Great idea, train the multipliers and they will spread the word.
The Apple store is several times bigger than the Nokia store and everything is held in white or very light wood color. Together with huge windows and the big glass stairs between the two shop stores it creates a very bright and daylight like experience.
The Nokia store on the other hand almost feels like a dungeon. Everything is held in black, lighting is scarce and there are no windows. That is of course good to bring out the best of the displays of the phones. However, I still felt much more comfortable in the bright Apple store.
Nokia is pushing the Music experience and the 5800 touch phone quite heavily, not only in the store but also advertises it very heavily throughout the city. No wonder sales a huge. Nseries and it’s multimedia capabilities on the other hand don’t seem to be emphasized at the moment.
Thinking about it, group courses on the multimedia capabilites of current Nokia smartphones would be a great thing for the store. After all I don’t think they are used yet by most Nseries owners.
If I ran the Nokia stores, I would also stock some pre-paid SIM cards with affordable Internet access already activated on them that are available in the UK. That way you can still sell the devices separately but have SIM cards ready for those people who want to buy the device and use the services right away. I wonder if mobile operators would be interested in that?
Nokia stores has a dark theme while Apple iPod is clean as white. I agree that Nokia is really pushing the Music experience especially the 5800 touch phone and I’ve been considering to switch my old phone.