In last week's post about Palm's phone plans, I made a passing comment about the right way to display your mobile phone at dinner in Europe. It turned out to be the most popular part of the post, and produced a couple of requests that I say more comparing European and American attitudes toward mobile phones. I don't pretend to the world's expert on the subject, but I'll summarize what I've seen. Here goes:
In the US, a cellphone is a tool. In Europe, a mobile phone is a lifestyle.
I guess I ought to give a few details. Let me start with a disclaimer: It's very dangerous to talk about "Europeans" as if they're some sort of unified cultural group. Europe is a continent of many nationalities, and each one has a different culture and history. National regulations on phones also differ dramatically within Europe, which has an important impact on mobile use.
I saw a good example of this in the responses to my last post. I said all Europeans put their mobile phones on the table during a meal. I got replies from some countries agreeing with me, and others saying I was completely wrong. It turns out the table thing differs from country to country.
It's only slightly less hazardous to talk about a "typical" American mobile phone user. The culture in the US is more uniform than it is in Europe, but there are profound differences between various market segments. The average 16-year-old in the US views a mobile phone very differently than the average 40-year-old. (Come to think of it, I suspect average 40-year-old mobile users in Berlin and Chicago probably have more in common with each other than either of them have with the 16-year-old.
The differences start with the words we use to talk about the industry. In Europe, a mobile phone is usually called (in English-speaking countries) a "mobile." As in, "I'll ring your mobile." In the US, mobile phones are most often called "cellphones," and that's sometimes shortened: "I'll call your cell."
The term differs in other European countries, of course (for example, Hermann on says the term in Germany is "handy.") I do know that if you say "cellphone" pretty much anywhere in Europe, people will look at you like you're a dork. Found that out
"It is so great because when you go to the phone and you delete and your phone asks 'Are you sure?' You look at your phone and you're like, 'oh yeah, I'm sure.'"
She then gives one of the most annoying, braying laughs I've heard on TV since...well. Ernestine.
I understand what Nokia was trying to do – it was making a sophisticated effort to tap into the mobile phone culture in the US. You can read a detailed ethnographic analysis of the ad campaign here. The problem for me was that, first, the mobile phone culture Nokia's trying to tap into is pretty weak in the US; and second, that Jill has just a whiff of trailer trash about her.
(Nokia has pulled the website for the campaign, which perhaps tells you how well it was received, but you can still find the commercial on the site of the agency that created it. Just follow this link and move your mouse around on the slider at the bottom of the page until you find Jill. You can also check out the other losers Nokia featured in the series.)
Americans tend to respond best to aspirational ads that make them feel good about themselves for buying a product. So buying a Mac will give you kinship with Einstein and Gandhi, which is outrageous but Steve Jobs can pull that off. Nokia's unintended message was that a Nokia phone will turn you into "a sniveling Sex in the City wannabe," as Gizmodo put it.
I think this is typical of Nokia's inability to connect with the American public.
What about the rest of the world?
There are even bigger variations in the mobile market in other parts of the world, but I didn't have the time (or the knowledge) to discuss all of them here. Mobile phone services and features in Japan and Korea make both Americans and Europeans look like techno-hicks. In Japan, the operators have so much power that phones are sold virtually unbranded, and Japanese phone manufacturers struggle to operate anywhere else in the world because the required reflexes are so different. It will be interesting to see what happens in Japan when number portability is implemented there, in late October. Surveys have said that large numbers of Japanese mobile phone users, especially those on Vodafone, would switch operators if the could.
The market worldwide is so complex that I think it's impossible for any one person to understand it all. So please help me out -- if I missed your country, or if you'd like to add to or correct something I said above, please post a comment.
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