Nokia reportedly investigating Lumia 920 ad-gate

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

An inside source says Nokia is trying to get to the bottom of the ad fiasco

As the fallout continues from the misleading video ad for the Lumia 920’s OIS camera, Nokia is evidently conducting and internal investigation on the matter.

The Finnish news site Helsingin Sanomat, one of that country’s major subscription papers and news outlet, is quoting an anonymous Nokia employee that the company is looking into what happened with the botched ad for the Lumia 920.

Evidently, the methodology to simulate the 920’s video camera was not known to executives within the company as the ad was commissioned by an external ad agency. Although Nokia is ultimately responsible for whatever video they put out with their name, it is becoming evident that this was something not planned nor known by those in the Finnish company.

It is not uncommon that simulations in ads are used to demonstrate unreleased or unfinished products—after all, it can take weeks for post-production and planning. However, such ads usually have a disclaimer. But since these were web-viral videos, they do not conform to traditional advertising standards.

Recently, footage demonstrating the 920’s ability to take low-light shots has begun to steer the conversation back to the technology at hand—something that Nokia and its employees are eager to do as they are quite proud of their achievement. Since Nokia has already apologized for the error, we can only hope the tech world will now move on.

Source: Hs.fi; Thanks, KP, for the link and translation

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

58 Comments
  • OMG... Ad-Gate.... *slaps forehead*
  • Seriouisly, this "gate" thing is getting so bad, I think we might be in gate-gate.
  • Facepalmgate.
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB9JgxhXW5w
  • Lets get on with our lives already.
  • Are you kidding? What are us WP geeks supposed to do over the weekend? ;-)
  • Lumia 920 and 820 forums are up!
  • Not only will the tech world dwell on this for a week or so, but you can bet that folks over in Cupertino are right now rewriting slides to poke fun at Nokia at the iPhone 5 event next week.  Sigh.
  • Oh, absolutely. Like I said in the forums, Apple will say something like "Oh, and these videos were actually taken with the iPhone 5. This is NOT a simulation."
  • Our enemy's enemy is our friend. I think Apple despises the scourge known as Android as much as Microsoft does.
  • Apple has no room to talk. I bet their iPhone 5 will look exactly the same in design and in UI.
  • I doubt they take Nokia seriously enough to bother making a reference to it in their iPhone 5 presentation. And yes, next week that'll be what everyone will be talking about (except us, who will devour every new detail about the 920).
     
    Still wish they would invent a trade-up program where you can get the 920 for a reduced price if you're still on contract.
  • They won't. They want Nokia to fail cause they won't make phones for android. As much as u hear them dog Nokia, what usually comes next is, "they should've gone with android." which leads me to believe that they are just salty Nokia chose WP over their precious android. Could u imagine if this was an android phone, they would be dry humping the ish out of nokias legs.
  • True.
  • You hit the nail on the head!
     
    They (Android, Symbian, and Meego fans) despise Nokia for choosing WP.
  • +1 for the use of the word "salty" lol! I do agree though. People need to get over it.
  • Ad-Gate? Looool. Must be a good sign. I mean, the iPhone had an Antenna-Gate, the new iPad had several connectivity gates, and they have sold well ;-)
     
    Joking aside: Hope the glitch in the process can be found and corrected in the future. (I hope they do it better than my employee where the scapegoat is fired and the faulty process stays as it is. Sigh.)
  • There was also "iPhonegate", when the iPhone 4 was left at a bar. Remember that one?
  • I'm fairly certain Nokia has the final say in the ad.  This was either rushed to get it done for the 5th or just slopiness on both the advertisers and Nokia for not noticing.
  • i beleive that the videos were trying to show you what OIS did when added to a camera when video recording. Yes it wasnt done with a 920, but whoever made the ad must have not made it clear that the ad will in fact show off the "technology" (OIS) that has been added to the 920 and show why the 920 will/may take better low light or better photos in general than any other camera phone in the market today.
     
    Honestly, at first i believed it was shot with a 920. but when i read the news i quickly realized that Nokia was just trying to show how this "technology" (OIS) works and benifets a camera. People should just relax and stop being so conclusive because ads are always simulated.
  • Totally agree. But the ad was deceptive. When it says "This is Lumia" at the end with the guy holding the camera, acting like he took those photos, it's quite misleading...
  • What ever happens the 920 red is mine
  • Tech world moving on after clarification? You realize its the tech world right? =s
  • Funny how its ok to lie on political ads but dare miss represent a feature because the phone isn't available quite yet.
  • +1
  • to be fair, everyone piled on Apple with their misleading Siri ads, so expect it when other companies do the same.
    In the end, though, regular customers just don't hear about these things, nor do they care.
  • Correct. Apple has been airing false and misleading ads for many years. The FCC doesn't care and it doesn't matter. It gets people talking. The Lumia 920 is a good phone and will gain from this publicity.
  • +1
  • Still want a 920. Still will get one the absolute moment my contract is up for renewal.
  • I am going to add a line to my plan to get that yellow 920 a bit earlier. :)
  • OIS with video isn't ready yet. 1:57 on the video:
    http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-lumia-920-proves-its-low-light-prowess-to-t...
    That would explain why the video was shot with another camera.
  • No one is upset that this feature is not yet ready. The issue is that the ad showd as it was shot with the 920. 
     
    The Yellow one is mine.. I'd like to get the Red for my wife... but, then she would snatch my Yellow. And, I don't know what to do with my current Black and Cyan 900s :)
  • LOL same here. Yellow for me, red for wifey.
  • Nokia is doing the right thing and being honest about the situation rather than pulling an Apple by ignoring it or blaming the viewers. I'm glad that there are still companies with some sense of integrity. In the mean time, I see the other article where they are coming back and showing off just how good the REAL THING is. This is why I'm choosing to become a fanboy for the company. #CLASSACT
  • Don't ever become a fanboy it never helps and no one will take anything you say seriously.
    If they're screwing up they need to be called on it. Tough Love is beats fanboy any day of the week.
  • +1
  • Very true. Being a fanboy only clouds your judgment.
  • "the methodology to simulate the 920’s video camera was not known to executives within the company"
    It's their job to know and review anything that can hurt or help the company.
    So am I to believe the guys at the top don't know what they're selling?
    I'll still get the phone, but the only reason is I hate Android, iPhone, Samsung and HTC and WP8 aps wont work with 7.5, so Nok wins be default.
    The people who screwed this up should be fired as should the idiots who screwed up the technical part of the presentation.  There are way too many talented people who want jobs to put up with this kind of crap.
    Also for the love of god hire some real presenters to do your demos or give these yahoos some quality training. I'm so sick of everyone trying to be Steve Jobs. He had his own style stop trying to be him. 
     
     
     
  • Oh wow... Somebody is going to get FIRED!!!
  • Truly, who cares -- I'm getting a Lumia 920, and switching from TMo to ATT. I shoot/edit marketing videos for a living, everything is fake. Hair commercials are fake. All Apple ads are fake. Any time you see a screen on phone, it's fake. How naive are people?
  • Fake and misleading are two different things. See Daniel's comment above.
  • They should just recreate the same video with a real Lumia 920 and it will be put to rest.  Simple as that.  Assuming it's really that good.
  • Yes, use the same van and crew, just with a Lumia 920.
  • After my comment to the verge i was blocked. Another opinion in the verge is not wellcomed.
  • Get blocked by the verge, do you got?!!!!
  • who fricken cares. We saw nokia 920 and 820 let's talk more of those phones. Maybe iponey and androids trolls probably jealous that nokia lumia are now a awesome phone
  • No, people are upset the ads were misleading.
  • I can freely admit to being anal about this, but can we agree to stop calling these videos "ads"? Here is the definition of ad or advertisment:
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/advertisement
    Nokia released teaser videos or promotional videos or You Tube videos or whatever you want to call them, just not ads. An actual ad that misleads can be subject to legal action and government sanction. This video that Nokia probably now wishes had never seen the light of day can't result in any such legal penalty.
    This doesn't mean that the negative result of this video is any less damaging to Nokia's reputation or any less distracting to the short attention span of the tech blogosphere, but so far Nokia is doing the right things to recover. By all means, investigate how this happened because embarassing the boss is never a good idea. Inviting the Verge to Central Park was also a good move, but I would have asked WP Central and other blogs as well. And frankly, I would do a demo a day just to keep the blogs talking about the Lumia and PureView.
  • I agree that they need to keep taking about it, though I think you might as well save your ammunition in a few days for a 10 day timeout. You're not going to shout over the Apple love. Might as well give them their moment in the sun and then come back with a bang.
  • There is never a problem with ads. A sony camera or camcorder ads never shot with Sony camera. That's the univeral law and common sense. When did it become a problem? just because the asshole blogger in the verge found out? Nokia never said it was shot by L920. It's demonstrating OIS technology that is applied on the L920. For god sake this is not an opinion, it's a fact! 
  • The ads did their job. They got people talking about Pureview. I think this will be a case of 'any publicly is good publicly'.
  • I think the best way to fix this is to film that sequence again with the 920. Show once and for all that the actual device can do this.
  • Daniel, What are doing here? "ad-gate"? Did you just coined this word? You think this kind of stupidity not enough? It's obvious a false accusation from the stupid verge. Why do you join this? I don't understand. I am shocked actually.
  • Of course the neutral tech world has moved on, but not sure about those iMedias. They're like the cancer of the world nowadays.
  • The verge is android troll site
  • They blocked me)))
  • Noone would ever know about it if only someone competent took 5 minutes to carefully watch the video, spot that obvious reflection and order to shop it out. The person who approved the teaser should at least have their bonus cut for this failure.
  • The idea that executives didn't know is ridiculous.
    If anyone has ever worked on an ad campaign you know that inevitably someone from corporate will show up. There is not an exec alive that doeans't like to get their hands in the middle of this kind of thing.
    Wether it is just to hang around the set or comment on boards, or even to ogle the talent... there is going to be a suit present. And if they were there I am damn sured they noticed all the pro lights and reflectors. Plus the were in Helsinki for gods sake! They can't even claim the ad was made somewhere they couldn't get to.
    This just pisses me off because I really want a new WP8 phone and all this can do is harm the brand. And long term that will make it harder for WP to make inroads in the market. It's bad enough my Titan can't be upgraded.