Nokia UK head of marketing admits the brand isn't going for the "mainstream" audience as Lumia Live Sessions events return
"Music is a great cultural hook for a brand. The event side-lined into 'let's do a series of music events which are true to our product offering’, explains Adam Johnson, head of UK marketing for Nokia ahead of its second Nokia Lumia Live Sessions tonight.
The mobile phone brand, which has been acquired by Microsoft and is set to become Microsoft Mobile, launched the Sessions last year in an effort to make the brand more relevant to a younger audience through a link with new musical talent.
"Nokia is a challenger brand, it would be weird for us to do a big event with Jay Z or One Direction," Johnson tells The Drum.
"We [Nokia] made a conscious decision last year to invest some time and people and money into making the Lumia more relevant to a younger audience. In the tech world there is a lot of love and familiarity for our brand but we felt a need to do new and interesting things to engage a newer and younger demographic.”
He adds: “MixRadio is all about discovery and Nokia devices are purposely designed not to look like other stuff so the music events we run should reflect that."
Last year, Nokia put on seven events with artists including Kodaline and Lianne La Havas in small underground venues like London's Chain Store and Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol with some spaces holding less than 100 people at a time.
She's a bit fantastic.. @liannelahavas for @nokia_uk #lumialive pic.twitter.com/464q2lpHYd
— Kaya Herstad Carney (@Kayamusic) May 30, 2013
Ghostpoet performed in Arnos Vale Cemetery tonight for @nokia_uk #LumiaLive - cool venue, they should do more there. http://t.co/xgsWAL6uzX
— Adam Gasson (@adamgasson) March 27, 2013
"These intimate events are something special for those who are there on the day, and it's our responsibility to make sure that the content is just as special for those who couldn't be there. You can't just put on a gig, film it and put it on YouTube, there has to be an element of 'Surprise and Delight'."Of this 'Surprise and Delight' element Johnson points to last year's Kodaline session in Dublin where the band went off stage and sung accapella outside the venue in a courtyard. Though that was "all choreographed" Johnson said the spontaneous feel of that moment (shown below) created a real 'I wish I was there' vibe to the content making it more shareable online amongst the band's fans.