There’s no one more critical about a plumber’s work than a fellow plumber. The same applies to marketing people; no one is more entertained than I am by watching others’ marketing initiatives.

This week, as a first in the blogging world, I won’t pit the usual contenders against each other: Apple, provider of iShinyThings(TM) vs the biggest mobile player in Europe, Nokia. Rather, in this game, Nokia and Apple will be tagteaming against Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

The game is one of survival: How to create buzz around your products so that bloggers write about your new gadget, consumers talk about it amongst themselves and, ultimately, they buy your stuff. Who’s doing it well, who’s doing it wrong and who’s not doing it at all?

In the right corner, Apple and Nokia, kings of buzz

There’s no debating what the most talked-about mobile device was this year. Yes, of course, I’m talking about the iPhone. Ubiquitous in the press? Yes. Overhyped? Quite possibly. But everyone knows what it looks like and has at least heard about it. I don’t even think people who live in a cave would manage to get away from the buzz.

Similarly, in Europe at least, the rumour mill has been working overtime churning out buzz about the Nokia smartphones. Prototype pictures circulating, guesses at future specs, wondering what will come next in the N-Series line. How can we resist the bait when we’re told that these are prototypes and “not to take pictures too close up”, but then handed the phones to play without supervision?

While Apple barely needs to move a finger for the fan base to get the rumour train going full steam ahead, Nokia has been actively seeding the market with humourous viral campaigns, such as the Jealous Computers, the N81 viral site and, lest we forget, the cheeky ads Nokia posted on Google for disgruntled iPhone users.

In both cases, staff present at events and conferences seem genuinely excited and personally invested in the business, rather than hired booth-monkeys who are counting the hours til they can go home.

And now, the opposition: Sony Ericsson and Motorola

In the other corner, we find Sony Ericsson and Motorola, two other major contenders for the phone market. To say the least, these two have selected an unorthodox strategy. The best way to describe is, hrmm, as the “go away!” tactic.

Last week, Steve Litchfield at All About Symbian described the brick wall he faced when visiting the Sony Ericsson store in London. No matter who Steve spoke to, he was told that taking pictures inside the store simply wasn’t allowed, journalist or not. The fact that Steve broadcasts reviews of mobile devices to hundreds of thousands of phone addicts seemed to completely escape the Sony Ericsson clan.

Motorola behaved in a similar way at the Smartphone Show, shuffling new devices out of sight when cameras were brought out, since “they’re prototypes and the finished hardware will be different.” Poor Steve found himself taking photos of basketball players.

His experience seemed to ring true with a number of readers, both as consumers and journalists, they’ve struggled to get anything blogworthy when attending SE or Motorola events.

Is Buzz the answer to everything?

Of course not. Buzz does not a great phone make, but it sure helps a good product carve a space in our limited mental bandwidth, ensuring we consider it as a possible option next time our phone upgrade comes around.

In practice, Sony Ericsson and Motorola still own a reasonable share, albeit far smaller than Nokia’s, of the mobile phone market, but few people talk or write about them with the same fervent passions that Apple and Nokia stir up. How much of it is owed to buzz and the bubbling community surrounding the products?

[Rock’em, Sock’em Robots picture from JTony on Flickr]

[tags]taptu, taptology, apple, iphone, nokia, symbian, motorola, sony ericsson, phones, mobile phones, technology, gadgets, marketing, buzz, community[/tags]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Community and social networks, Mobile devices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.