This is a big sticking point of the Symbian bloggers, which are mostly in the US, ironically. We'd love to diss some of these paper champs, but Nokia's policies don't allow it. Only a carrier will do it, and they're all scared of Nokia here.

And, Nokia barely advertises on TV in the US.

US Cell Phone advertising is mostly carrier-driven, with carriers and phone manufacturers cooperating on advertising the latest and greatest subsidized phones. Since Nokia doesn't really play too much of the subsidization game, they are shut out of much of the advertising.

Of course, Apple is the exception--they run the majority of their iPhone spots, not AT&T. But for the most part, the manufacturers have benefited from having a significant portion of their advertising subsidized by the carriers.

No, Nokia DOESN'T advertise. Its part of the agreement with carriers. Either sell SOME phones via carriers and lose ability to market, or sell NONE and do your own ads for devices without subsidy. Its a conflict, and I wish carriers would get out of the ad business. Look at at&t's E71x commercials, which said nothing about the device.

And they do a good job (Apple). Nokia should earmark some money for ads and use it to position itself better with carriers. I don't think Nokia is willing to do American style marketing, though, which is a shame.

Nokia barely advertises (believe it or not, they have executed TV in the past 2 years, but the levels are so low that I wonder if the tracking services are really just picking up test marketing of some sort).

The carriers are not forcing Nokia not to advertise. The issue of carrier-manufacturer cooperation in advertising is a separate issue. Nokia could easily have spent the money to advertise independent of carrier, much like Apple does.

Nokia wanted to opt-out of subsidization, and that's fine. In fact, I applaud them for that. However, at the same time, they also decided not to do any significant TV marketing support of their own to help defend their market share in the US, which is a head-scratcher.

Apple has the brand equity and advertising budget to do what it does--and it's worked well for them in further equity-building: the iPhone is more likely to be identified with Apple, and not AT&T. Nokia has the money, and probably had the equity in the early part of this decade--but they have dug themselves in a big hole in the US market by not using it's marketing dollars effectively, if at all.

Where do you get that information, klinglerware? From the many people I've spoken to in marketing for Nokia, Nokia can't freely advertise its unlocked devices because of an agreement with the carriers. Since Nokia's dumbphones prevail on carrier shelves, they're bound not to compete with the carriers AT ALL. That means they can't market against the other smartphones as long as the carrier has Nokia product on the shelf.

Nokia could strike a marketing deal where they produce their own commercials, but with the small US marketshare and reluctance from carriers to take S60 devices without heavily handicapping the OS, Nokia has little to gain with that method. There was no "opt out" from subsidies, but a denial from the carriers because S60 devices were too powerful, and negated the ringtone sales and other services carriers were offering. Nokia has been begging for subsidies for years, but stuck up for the users after the at&t raping of the N75 and E61. Carriers have to pay for firmware updates since they want custom ROMS, and they don't want that either, so Nokia conceded the US market.

Its been the US that missed out on the S60 sales, not Nokia. And the new mobile climate is changing, and carriers have more reason to try new devices to remain competitive and different. Nokia and the US carriers both dropped the ball, IMO. Nokia should've let them hose the phones to get the users indoctrinated, and allowed us to use generic ROMS to debrand. Hopefully branding is over, but we'll see. No one likes branded devices...

When I saw that iDont advertisement on TV, I immediately though - man this seems to be Maemo ad. But of course it turned out to be the Droid ad.

But it was made for Maemo and its rebuttal of all things non Maemo. I dont know how Android can claim to be all those things either - at least on the Open development point.