Shoot MWC Retro Star Bullets

For the past few years I’ve enjoyed looking in from afar at Barcelona when what’s become the global launch conference takes place that is the Mobile World Congress.

So who’s this year’s standout star?

Wearables? Augmented reality? The Internet of Things? 5G?

No.

It’s a phone from the last century.

Yes, a revamped, relaunched, no wifi, no facebook, pixelated small screen old school ‘sms & calls’-only “dumbphone“. Your must-have second-phone for €49.

I know it’s the talk of the event because when you scroll through instagram, every single screen-full of your dozen-or-so thumbnails shows at least one shot of said phone. It dominates feeds. Buzz clearly loud.

The maker must be absolutely loving it.

Above I show one such #nokia3310 fanpic.

What interests from a Sales angle, is how the manufacturer pitches the product.

Indeed, all their phones have the same treatment. A piece of card with plain, unembellished text listing a handful of features. Like a spec sheet by an intern recently discovered in a dusty file from back in 2000.

Yet I quite like it.

Who needs adjectives when what you’re offering looks so obviously different from anything else around?

Alright, yes, the flourish of “better” and “classic” get an airing. And an ‘advantage’ does squeeze in here, a ‘benefit’ there. But the feel remains understated. And I think packs a punch because of it.

Their hook is “retro”. With all that entails in a lightning fast moving space for a tightly defined buyer (albeit from the fringes of trend-following to anti-tech).

If you’ve a single hook – one that’s unconventional or tangential to the prevailing mood – then can you try your own Nokia style pitch (for slide or verbal delivery) to spotlight it?