In a press release today, Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia confirmed that it would be killing off the “Ovi” name they use for most of their software, and rebranding it as simply “Nokia”.
A transition will begin this July and continue through into 2012 whereby each of Nokia’s Ovi services will be rebranded as Nokia. For instance, Ovi Store, Ovi Maps and Ovi Music will become Nokia Store, Nokia Maps and Nokia Music.
In the blog post made by Nokia, their EVP and Chief Marketing Officer Jerri DeVard said “We have made the decision to change our service branding from Ovi to Nokia. By centralizing our services identity under one brand, not two, we will reinforce the powerful master brand of Nokia and unify our brand architecture – while continuing to deliver compelling opportunities and experiences for partners and consumers alike.”
To explain Nokia’s move, Jerri stated “The reasons for this decision includes the fact that Nokia is a well-known and highly-loved brand the world over. Our mobile experiences are tightly integrated with our devices – there is no longer a differentiation. For example, if consumers want the best mobile navigation experience, they know it’s a Nokia that they can rely on. These last few years, and moving forward, our mission remains unchanged: we will continue our work to deliver compelling, unified mobile service offerings and next-generation, disruptive technologies.”
So it seems Nokia wish to have their services branded as their own, as that’s what their customers will be familiar with. We’re unsure why they branded everything as Ovi in the first place, but hey-ho.
Nokia will be changing the software preloaded on new handsets in the near future, so customer’s purchasing a new handset should see Nokia branded services already within the menu systems of their devices. Existing Nokia owners should see the changes made by way of OTA software updates according to Nokia.
Glad to see the back of the Ovi branding? Share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.
Via: Nokia Blog