Driving recognition for Nokia as a B2B tech powerhouse

Nokia was once in the pockets of over a billion people worldwide. It has won Nobel prizes for its innovations. It invented the transistor. Confirmed the Big Bang theory. Was responsible for the first GSM call. And, for the past decade, it has brought that same groundbreaking spirit to the world of telecom and B2B networking, leading at the intersection of networks and cloud.

But despite this evolution, most people continue to see Nokia as a mobile phone company—a perception holding the brand back as it seeks to grow in the enterprise market, outpace competitors and be recognized for the value it brings to service providers it partners with.

Today, the networking technology Nokia pioneers is becoming increasingly valuable to the digitalization of every physical industry. Think retail, supply chain, mining and beyond. The next industrial revolution is expected to unleash the potential of digital like never before, bringing together innovations in Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence to enable fully remote, connected, and smart operations. For enterprises and governments alike, this means massive gains in productivity, safety, and sustainability.

In short, now is Nokia’s time to unlock its next stage of growth. First, Nokia needed to gain recognition for the B2B technology innovation leader it already is. One that enables customer and partner ecosystems to create the digital services and applications of the future, demonstrating what’s possible when the world acts together.

As a partner to Nokia through every major step in its brand journey for the past 15+ years, Lippincott has seen Nokia’s evolution firsthand. Now, we were tasked with driving re-appraisal for Nokia as a B2B brand, and help the company accelerate its next phase of growth.

Working closely with the organization, we started by distilling the company’s ambition into a brand positioning that reflects the valuable role Nokia plays: pioneering the future where networks meet cloud to accelerate the impact of digital in every industry. We further articulated Nokia as a strategic collaborator and a distinctly human brand with a new purpose: “At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together.” This purpose comes alive in a fresh new logo and visual identity, designed to signal change and help existing and prospective customers see Nokia in a new light.

We built the identity to echo Nokia’s rich heritage as the inventor of essential technologies, while giving it a fresh, contemporary, dynamic feel to represent the Nokia of today. This meant simplifying the geometry of the original logo and striking the right degree of visual evolution so the iconic logo, unchanged for more than half a century, was still instantly recognizable. And, to visually represent Nokia’s purpose, the logo’s individual letters were abstracted so they only read as ‘Nokia’ when they act together. We also designed a new logo for Nokia Bell Labs—the iconic technology innovator– to highlight Nokia’s ownership of Bell Labs and, bringing it visually closer to the Nokia brand.

The new digital-first identity goes further with a kaleidoscopic color palette and bold imagery that cuts through the industry’s sea of sameness. The logo’s N, O and K letterforms have been repurposed as bold graphics to use across all content, so every communication from the brand is distinctively Nokia.

The new Nokia was revealed to the world on February 26, 2023 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.