Everything is bought and sold
And life openly laughs at us.
We are indignant, we are indignant
But we buy and sell.
Omar Khayyam
Emotion sellers
In the 21st century, human emotions have long turned into a commodity. Although buyers, unlike large companies, do not always realize this. It is difficult to learn how to competently sell emotions, but you cannot see real success without it.
When buying a ticket to a cinema, a new smartphone, a computer game or a camera, we primarily buy not things, but emotions. For most buyers, a smartphone is not a speech medium, a laptop is not an electronic computer, and a camera is not a device for recording still images. This is the joy of communicating with friends, your favorite music, new books, game characters, for whom at the time of the game you worry like living people. The dream is to discover the great talent of a photographer, to amaze friends with a gorgeous vacation, to get a promotion at work. A chance to remember your youth or try yourself as an e-sportsman.
Selling emotions is a complex process, there is no single recipe or general instruction. And almost everything matters here – the design of the device, the history of the brand, the current fashion, the advertising campaign, 'accidental' leaks, the retaliatory steps of competitors, the reaction of journalists, the target audience, the choice of stores, the quality of workmanship, remuneration for sales assistants and a bunch of other things. One mistake – and the potential flagship of the year will turn into a niche product. Interesting, but not particularly selling.
Many people sincerely believe that any problems can be solved by expensive PR, but this is not the case. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of when a rich ad campaign is failing or when rave reviews and testimonials never translate into real sales. And even in hindsight, it can be difficult to say why product X was successful, and buyers were not interested in a similar product Y.
Creation of a bright and original product is not only dry calculation, but also art. In which there are no and cannot be any guarantees. After all, even the most eminent author, artist or director is never, until the last moment, sure how the public will accept his new creation.
Remakes
As in art, sometimes there is a temptation here not to reinvent the wheel from scratch, but to take as a basis an already existing and time-tested solution. You can reshoot a popular film, write a sequel to someone else's book, develop a modern version of a forgotten computer toy, or perform a song by a popular pop star in your own way. Or you can release a modern Nokia 3310 or revive the legendary Moto series. Of course, there are a number of legal restrictions here, but if you really want to, you can get around them.
Nokia's April Fool's joke: Nokia 3310 with 41MP camera
To many, remakes seem like a win-win solution and a sure way to fame. And the easiest way to provoke the buyer to positive emotions. It would seem that it could be simpler – to take a once popular concept and hastily modernize it. You don't have to go into details – nobody will see them behind pink nostalgia glasses.
In fact, there are dozens of toothless and uninteresting fakes for one successful remake. For example, we can recall the Lord of the Rings, whom they tried to rewrite, add and update hundreds of times. Especially when the film adaptation of the book came out. At that time, in a large bookstore, you could find a dozen different collections 'based on', humorous alterations and unofficial sequels. But as soon as interest in the film subsided, all these immortal creations were poisoned in a landfill, and the dreams of enterprising authors about world fame remained just dreams. The only thing that can be found on store shelves now is Perumov's cycle, which really turned out to be quite convincing. And it was written long before the “boom” of the trilogy.
The reason is very simple. It takes talent to create a quality remake. And talented people prefer to do their own projects, rather than remake others. Those who do not have enough talent to do something of their own are greedy for other people's work. There are, of course, exceptions. And in some rare cases, the remake is even better than the original (say what you want, but the cycle 'The Wizard of the Emerald City' is much cooler than 'The Land of OZ', and 'The Adventures of Pinocchio' came out better than 'The Adventures of Pinocchio'). But such exceptions only confirm the rule.
Anatomy of a miracle
Most often, remakes can be found in the world of computer games. Which is understandable. A book written a couple of decades ago can be safely re-read today. But only the most devoted fan will be ready to play the game with graphics of twenty years of freshness.
Such remakes can be divided into two categories. In the first case, the game is simply updated graphics, and everything else remains unchanged. Fans only welcome this approach, but the sales of the game are usually not impressive. New players will find it incomprehensible and uninteresting, and the fans themselves will launch a couple of times, and then return to the 'classic' edition, which is dearer to their hearts.
In the second case, the gameplay and game mechanics are heavily reworked. It is no longer so much about copying as about creative rethinking of the original. Fans write petitions, make noise on forums and demand that the hands of those who encroached on sacred be removed. But on the other hand, the game really has a chance to repeat the success of the classic part. Not just to please old fans, but to thunder the whole world. It's not just a classic with a modern twist. Rather, what the original could have been if it was being developed these days.
However, with the same success, the developers may come out with a faceless homunculus, unsuccessfully trying to repeat the feat of the original. Crooked, oblique and soulless. There are also plenty of such examples of the gaming industry, and sometimes you just can't understand how much you had to hate the original game in order to turn it into IT.
I can remember the successful remakes of computer games easily. Starting from strategies like XCOM and King's Bounty and ending with shooters like DOOM. You can scold them, you can praise them – but in general, this is a great example of the very sale of emotions. When the old essence is hidden behind the new wrapper. These games helped old players to remember their youth, and new ones – to experience the very emotions that the 'oldfags' experienced while playing the original a dozen years ago.
But successful remakes of smartphones do not come to mind. Although there have been attempts to do something like this more than once.
Nokia 3310
Gandalf:
“Take the ring, Frodo. What do you see?
Frodo:
– Something is written on it.
– What?
– Made in China!
“That’s what I was afraid of.
Joke
The first thing that comes to mind is the 'reborn' Nokia 3310. HDM had a unique chance to prove to the world that the Nokia business is alive. To release a full-fledged remake of the iconic 'pipe' that would become their calling card.
Nokia 3310 Concept
Nokia 3310 Concept
Nobody tried to keep the essence of the original, to show the continuity of the 'Finnish' and 'Chinese' Nokia, or at least just to beat the legendary design. Instead, the company chose to just appear in the media, using the name of the device as a news feed. We were shown another cheap Chinese device of more or less similar dimensions and at a high price. With the same success, the Nokia brand and the 3310 index could be stuck on any other phone and everyone understood this.
New Nokia 3310, or 'How to spoil everything?'
If the new Nokia 3310 had something to do with the old one, there would be a lot of people willing to overpay a little for this handset. But since it does not cause any emotions, then it is worth evaluating it exclusively in terms of price / quality ratio. Which frankly does not shine here.
Microsoft Lumia
Since we are talking about Nokia, we must remember the company Microsoft. Formally, the Lumia series is not a remake of Finnish smartphones. But only because the line of smartphones on MeeGo never really saw the light of day.
Elop's abortion victim – Nokia N9: first and last MeeGo
It is enough to look at Nokia N9 to understand that Lumia is a clear attempt to release the same devices, only on a new OS. A remake of the potentially successful, but infantile, flagships.
Left – Nokia N9, right – Nokia Lumia 800. Can you spot ten differences?
I still don't know if this game was worth the candle. On the one hand, the Nokia brand definitely helped Microsoft at first. On the other hand, he also became the reason why many fans of the brand turned away from the company.
Smartphones did evoke emotions – but a little different from what they should. And if it was not Nokia, but some other company, the attitude towards Windows smartphones would be more tolerant. Let's say, try the same company HTC again to make a serious bet on the development of a PDA on the updated Windows, I would be only happy for it. Moreover, I fully admit that the Taiwanese could achieve some kind of success. Push the necessary changes in the OS interface, add ideas from your Sense shell. When you release products under your own name, and not someone else's, you inevitably worry about your reputation and work for the result.
Microsoft didn't have this problem. The company hid behind a well-known brand and began to do something strange and incomprehensible, hiding behind the fact that the Finnish company does not knit brooms. At the same time, frankly spitting on all the traditions of Nokia and completely killing its spirit. When poor sales assistants started telling fairy tales like 'Don't look what is written on the body Microsoft! This is a real Nokia, only now American! ' people familiar with the situation did not even feel irritation, but shame.
Offtopic: empire of tiles, version ten
Perhaps, if you hadn't Microsoft a cover from a well-known brand, the company would have been more worried about the result. I would try to somehow analyze the results of my attempts and try not just to release the same type of bricks, but to change something. And so at MS they were too confident in the power of the brand's charm and were not too worried about the reaction of customers and the lean faces of former partners. Because of this, the history Windows of smartphones turned into a history of rake races.
One of the Nokia concepts
And this is really sad, because there really was a chance to revive Nokia. If there was even a shadow of past emotions behind the new smartphones, they would certainly find their niche. But no one just cared about such trifles as the emotions of buyers.
One of the Nokia concepts
If we continue the analogy with computer games, then we can compare this line with the legendary series of games Heroes of Might and Magic. With which has been happening for many years, do not understand what – the publisher knows that the brand will sell itself and therefore is not initially interested in developing a high-quality, popular, but expensive product. Every new game gets worse, but while the brand is still alive, nobody cares.
Lenovo Moto
At first glance, the history of merging Lenovo and Motorola seems very similar to the history of Nokia and Microsoft. In fact, it is more like the situation with HDM and Nokia 3310. Lenovo does not try to hide behind someone else's brand, trying to crush the market not with products, but with naked authority. On the contrary, the company is not shy about experimenting and showing really bright and unusual things. The only trouble is that they have nothing to do with Motorola.
It turns out to be a very strange situation when the PR department releases touching videos about the clamshell Motorola RAZR V3, and the engineers create something that is far from this clamshell. We seem to be deliberately shown that there is an abyss between the dreams of fans and reality. That Motorola will never be the same and it is better to forget about the revival of the legendary devices right away.
This is a very interesting case when the company initially has no desire to release remakes of old smartphones. But for some reason she is trying to create the appearance of such remakes, flirting with fans and stubbornly proving that black is white.
It's like writing a solid fantasy saga … and then changing the names of the characters to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. In one fell swoop, turning the book from a hard work into a strange and unfortunate parody.
HTC One V
In my opinion, HTC Hero is one of the brightest and most distinctive smartphones in the portfolio of the Taiwanese company. And for our market, the device is a landmark – if I'm not mistaken, this is the first Android smartphone officially sold in Russia.
The company has made several attempts to revive the design of the Hero, but without much success. The first such smartphone was HTC Legend. A beautiful mid-range smartphone with a metal body, eye-catching design, beautiful shell … and a hugely overpriced price. The difference in cost from the HTC Desire was minimal, and the specifications were very different. For most buyers, the choice was obvious.
HTC Hero and HTC Legend
The next 'hero' smartphone was HTC One V. By the standards of HTC it was a budget device, although in fact it belonged more to the middle segment. The phone itself came out quite well, but the popularity HTC at that time was already rapidly falling. And the flagship device HTC One X came out very controversial, which could not but affect the perception of the entire line. I don't have sales data for HTC One V, but it looks like HTC the results weren't inspiring. The following year, the company finally abandoned big names and unique design, narrowing the line HTC One to one single device. A sad but logical outcome.
Smartphone Review HTC One V
The main trouble of the 'hero' smartphones is that none of them could become truly iconic. Instead of a remake of a popular work, a remake of a forgotten play was obtained. Looking at the design of HTC One V, most users just shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment, it simply did not cause any associations in them. And this design did not bring any practical benefit – the physical keys on the bottom of the smartphone disappeared back in the days of Legend, now a trackball has also joined them.
iPhone SE
iPhone SE is one of the simplest, but at the same time the most successful remakes. In fact, it's good old iPhone 5, but with modern stuffing from iPhone 6s.
Smartphone Review Apple iPhone SE
The company Apple can be loved or hated, but we must admit that it knows how to sell emotions like no other. And with minimal costs for yourself. For many fans iPhone SE has become the embodiment of a long-held dream, perhaps more rejoicing would be the reincarnation of the 'four'. And many owners of 'shovels' on Android tired of their dimensions switched to iPhone SE. Fortunately, the choice of compact flagship devices on Android is more than modest.
Back to the Future
Why are there so few successful mobile remakes on the market? First of all, because their time has not come yet. The design of modern smartphones is built around a huge screen, the main efforts of designers are aimed at making the resulting 'shovel' more or less comfortable to hold in hands. The question of what Nokia N90 would be like nowadays does not arise. These days, such a smartphone would simply not exist.
I would not be surprised if in five to ten years, when the screens begin to really bend, one of the manufacturers will again remember the idea of sliders and clamshells. Many iconic devices deserve a second chance. And if they do not copy them one-to-one, but try to rework them under modern realities, then they will have this chance. Smartphone hardware or specific design techniques can become very outdated in a decade. Emotions don't get old that quickly.
Even now, the power of smartphones in the middle price segment is enough for everyday tasks. Over time, buyers will begin to pay less attention to bare characteristics, and look for something different in new smartphones. And the technical capabilities will allow companies to abandon the concept of the same type of 'building blocks' and remember the good old days.
HTC A Legend with a bezel-less screen a la Sharp Aquos Crystal would look just gorgeous. The RAZR clamshells would be snapped up like hotcakes if they had a foldable seamless display instead of a block of numeric keys. The Sony Tablet S would be very good if it had a flip-down keyboard and two pre-installed operating systems. And I would definitely not refuse a thin slider in the style of Nokia n85 with an additional set of multimedia keys.
It is useless to guess what will happen in ten years – for the world of mobile devices it is too long. But I personally really like this picture of the future.
Fingers crossed?