The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

It’s beyond me why Prada would want to do this deal with LG. I agree with Pete. Prada is taking a massive nosedive downmarket with this LG co-branding deal. But if I were LG, I would do it again.

It was an interesting move. I think Prada felt they would gain kudos from the iPhone association; whereas in reality they lost a little from the LG association. Not that LG are a bad brand, they just lag a little in phones…although that said, at the time this one came out LG did have the single most stylish phone on the market. (The chocolate).

Funnily enough, the other times mobile phone companies ‘linked up’ with designers/brands, they seemed to have [initially at least] fucked up …
or strictly speaking, Motorola have with D&G and Apple. Then this is a brand that said their strategy was to give phones names with 3 or 4 letters as they had proof this meant it was seen as ‘cool’.

For fucks sake …

Charles wrote a great post on this issue over on his blog – a blog he can’t access at the moment as he’s in Beijing at the moment, ha!

I can see why Prada did it too … but I still wouldn’t allign with a company that is still more well known [in certain parts of the World] for fridges and mircowaves than phones!

In their quest to make their brand more accesible [if that was the real reason] they’ve actually – in my mind at least – made their brand less desirable, a major difference, ha!

If you license your brand to extensions that are unrelated to the core then you denude or at least relocate that core. Phone usage may well have a fashion element to it but it’s a different sort of fashion from that in which Prada deals so I can’t see it does Prada any good unless as Mr. Mortimer says it’s a Burberry thing.

Yep.
At the point that phone came out though, phones were at their highest ever point of being “style symbols”. Maybe they were testing the water, maybe they were unexclusivising, maybe they just got it wrong.

But considering the potential market of phones, I bet they consider a test worth taking.

Haha.

Well firstly, Levi’s have already tried technological developments (I believe they did the first mp3 player jacket.).

Secondly, I wouldnt say Levis was the right type of brand to do such a move. The middle to lower ‘class’ section of phones is crowded… Prada stood a chance because the high end phone market was starting to take off alongside the fashionista-phone market.

Well we’ll be able to evaluate LEVI’s extention as they’re launching very soon and I for one am interested to see where it fits in. The problem with all this is that there’s no guaranteed set of rules – there’s great examples in both camps – but one thing that does seem to underpin success is being serious about it, rather than simply stretching the brand to exploit some perceived profit opportunity.

I have to say that my girlfriend wanted one and got one. But the telephone is real crap. It looks nice but is absolutely impractical as hell. So it got sold and will be replaced by a Nokia.
In my thought only LG took advance from the cooperation. But still I can’t understand why Prada did it. I don’t like Prada but they should have done a cooperation with Samsung or Nokia. A good mobile phone brand. The same is with the new cooperation between Porsche Design and Sagem. Why Sagem? They were okay 10 years ago but since then only produced bad products. Anyway, morning everybody.

But Nokia and Samsung dont design ‘style’ phones. And most Nokias feel like they are made by a 5year old using sticklebricks.

Wouldnt surprise me.
I can see why Nokia went for W+K, they need all the style advice they can get.

I stopped buying Nokias because they never felt like they would last 5 minutes.

Oh no, sirs. Nokia is still the best choice when it comes to mobile phones. They have an intuitive menu and less susceptible for technical wear than other manufacturers. This may sound like corporate toadiness (thanks for teaching me that term, Rob) but it’s just the truth. Right now I own a Samsung and they are great, too. Especially in terms of design they are ahead of Nokia. But my next will be a Nokia again.
Though I have to agree about the designish aspect. But why do Nokia phone look like oldschool bones from the 80ies? Aren’t the Scandinavian designers famous for their ahead of time designs and minimalism? Or is it because Finland is too close to Russia (sorry) and only the Danish and Swedish have that brilliant taste for form and function?

I’m with Seb on the Nokia point. Intuition and ease of use is a massive, massive reason as to why they are still number one worldwide.

It also helps that they are using the 3310 in the developing world, one of the great mobile designs in the last 15 years. People then trade up, and voila..

Dont like Samsung, and Motorola’s are so incredibly user unfriendly. But I love my Sharp phone, even after two years.

But Dyson has style.
Well, they certainly used to.

I always thought that where Nokia were sensible was ensuring their ‘key accessories’ always were interchangable with other phones – alas the quest for profit changed all that so if you buy a new phone, half the time you need a completely new charger, desk holder, software upgrade etc etc.

I’ve not had Nokia for years now – almost bought the N95 but went back to Sony Ericsson, mainly because I actually think it’s more intuitive and simple than the much vaunted Nokia menu system. Jill has a Nokia and there’s about 800 menus, all with different icons – whereas SONY fit them all into 12 key headings which makes things much easier. At least for me 🙂

As for the size issue NP talks about – he’ll be happy that a couple of manufacturers are launching phones that will make him happy – giants of a thing – but maybe he’d prefer the ultra basic Motorola one [7 quid] or the French ‘disposable cardboard’ mobile [5 quid, I think] so that if he loses it, he doesn’t give a toss, ha!

Very interesting debate today – thanks folks – and for the questions to ask at the conference.

Errrrm, maybe it’s because I’m rushing to the airport or maybe it’s because I’m as blind as a bat – but where they hell is that link you’re talking about Mr M?