DDB wins Best Creative Agency of the Year

It was a day of pomp and glitz as key players in the different industries, such as MTN, Firstbank, Nokia, Guinness, their advertising agencies, brand icons and leading journalists, came together to acknowledge and reward excellence at the 3rd edition of Marketing World Awards which took place at the resplendent Intercontinental Hotel earlier this November.

DDB Lagos topped the list of awardees, walking away with Best Creative Agency of the Year which once again demonstrated how the craftsmen and wordsmiths at the Nigerian office of DDB are dedicated to towing the line of creativity and being enemies of the ordinary.

It was especially a big celebration for DDB Lagos as MTN received the largest number of Awards beginning with the Marketing Campaign of the Year Award for the Mobile Number Portability advertising campaign masterpiece, ‘I don Port’, featuring leading actor and comedian, Hafiz Oyetoro, a.k.a. Saka. Other awards comprised of Telecom Brand of the Year Award, Overall Marketing World Brand of the Year Award and Marketing Team of the Year Award.

Still on the local scene, during the 9th edition of the annual Nigerian Telecom Awards, creative powerhouse DDB Lagos once again carted away both the Best Telecom Advertising Agency of the Year and The Best Telecom Advert of the Year for the same I don Port campaign.

It comes as no surprise that DDB Lagos picked the most coveted advertising awards at both award ceremonies, going by its profile as Nigeria’s leading telecoms marketing company and a reputation for creative excellence nurtured over 26 years. DDB Lagos has created several award-winning campaigns for Nigeria’s leading telecoms company, MTN, whose advertising account it has held since 2006, a record in itself.

The I don Port campaign, following with which the agency emerged a force in telecoms advertising across Africa, is arguably Nigeria’s most sensational advertising campaign, with over 100,000 hits on YouTube after just one week of its release. It equally generated an unprecedented amount of debate and discourse in the media, as well as mock videos on the internet. The campaign is now being used as a case study at the School of Marketing Communications of the Pan African University, Lagos.

source: www.businessdayonline.com

African Tech Deal of the Year

Nokia shareholders in November voted in favour of the sale of the company’s devices and services section to Microsoft, at a price tag of US$7.36 billion.  Microsoft is also granted a 10 year non-exclusive licence to Nokia’s patents. The sale is likely to conclude in early 2014 – currently awaiting regulatory approvals – with approximately 32,000 Nokia employees expected to transfer to Microsoft. The deal sees the Windows Phone platform united with its biggest hardware supplier, and paves the way for Windows Phone/Nokia devices to take over the African market, in which Nokia handsets have proven popular to date. With the Windows Phone platform already being touted as a favourable solution for African markets – under Microsoft’s 4Afrika initiative – and Nokia producing a range of low-cost smartphones suited to lower-income environments, the deal sees the beginning of a potential African market titan.

Richard Cutcher: As news broke that MTN had invested US$75 million in Amadeus Capital Partners, a technology fund targeting emerging markets, at first it appeared Africa’s best-known telecommunications brand was giving something back to the industry it profits so immensely from. However, after interviewing the managers of the fund, HumanIPO established MTN is more interested in taking advantage of the growing mobile sector by boosting foreign ventures to serve the African industry rather than any of the continent’s talented developers and entrepreneurs. As a single indicator of the stupidity surrounding moneymen of African telecommunications, this was surely the ‘African’ tech deal of the year.

source:www.humanipo.com

Huawei, ZTE, Nokia Cleared in Patent Dispute With Interdigital

The U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled against InterDigital in a complaint that alleged Huawei, Nokia, ZTE had infringed the company's patents.

On Thursday, the ITC upheld a previous ruling in June that found Huawei, Nokia and ZTE had not infringed on the seven InterDigital patents named in the complaint. Filed in 2011, the InterDigital case had sought an import ban by the U.S. on older 3G phones from the three handset makers. InterDigital said it was disappointed with the ITC decision, and would appeal it.

It has another petition pending with the ITC that is targeting 3G and 4G products from Huawei, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung. The complaint, filed in January, accuses the four companies of infringing up to seven of its cellular-related patents. InterDigital asked for an import ban into the U.S. on Samsung's Galaxy S III, the Nokia Lumia 920, and other smartphones from the handset makers, which the ITC is authorized to impose in some cases of patent infringement.

InterDigital is a U.S.-based research company that develops wireless standards and holds 20,000 patents. The company, however, has drawn criticism for being a "patent troll," a claim InterDigital rejects, pointing to its 200 engineers that work on new technologies. Not all are convinced. The Chinese government in September launched an anti-monopoly investigation against InterDigital, which the company said was the result of its patent lawsuits targeting Huawei.

InterDigital now alleges that China is threatening to arrest its employees. This week, the company was scheduled to dispatch staff to the country for talks with China's National Development and Reform Commission. But on Friday, the government body said it could not guarantee the safety of employees sent to the country, according to InterDigital spokesman Patrick Van de Wille.

"There are not a lot of ways to perceive this positively," he said on Tuesday. "Even if the NDRC does back track and guarantees their safety, we don't even know if we would believe them.

source: www.allafrica.com

NSN zain partnership shows leadership

Nokia Solutions and Networks and Zain Group have successfully partnered for nearly two decades with one sole objective - ensuring world-class service experience for Zain's customers. Marking this fruitful partnership, NSN demonstrated its advanced mobile broadband solutions at the Zain Technology Conference (ZTC) 2013 on Dec 1-3, 2013 in Dubai, UAE. NSN has been a main infrastructure supplier to buildZain Group's GSM, 3G and 4G network. Over the years NSN has evolved as the world's specialist in mobile broadband and continues to provide its superior mobile broadband infrastructure including its Customer Experience Management (CEM) and services to Zain Group. NSN's solutions demonstrated at the conference include its Liquid Applications, Active Antenna Systems, Voice over LTE (VoLTE), Congestion Aware Packet Core, CEM, NetAct, Service Quality Manager (SQM), Operations on Demand, and intelligent Self-Organizing Networks (iSON). In the longstanding partnership from 1994, when Zain's first GSM network in Kuwait was built, NSN continues to support Zain Group to be a market leader in the Middle East region. Throughout the long and successful partnership, NSN delivered its superior mobile broadband technologies to transform Zain Group's network cost-efficiently to ensure the best service experience for its customers. Among other important deployments, these technologies include the first CEM deployment for Zain Kuwait in 2011, unique operations support systems (OSS) portfolio deployed for touch Lebanon in 2013, for both of which NSN was awarded the prestigious Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards 2013, and LTE network deployed for Zain Saudi Arabia (Zain KSA) in 2012. Also, for the last five years, NSN has been providing its Special Event Support Services (SESS) to Zain KSA's GSM, 3G, and 4G network during the Hajj event. NSN's SESS helps Zain KSA meet the increased demand for network capacity and avoid any degradation in network performance during the exceptional traffic and load conditions during the yearly mega event. "NSN has been one of the main pillars of our success stories in the region," saidScott Gegenheimer, CEO of Zain Group. "NSN has provided its superior mobile broadband network including radio and core networks to build a reliable GSM, 3G, and 4G network for us in the region. It's CEM platform is one of its innovative technologies that helped us transform the service experience of our customers cost-efficiently." "We are committed to helping Zain Group satisfy its customers and be a market leader by providing the best voice and data services and," Igor Leprince, Senior Vice-President, Middle East and Africa, NSN. "NSN will continue to support the operator with our latest mobile broadband innovations for radio and core network such as core virtualization including telco cloud innovations and enhanced voice call continuity for VoLTE. With our focus on innovations

source: www.hispanicbusiness.com

Nokia targets low end android competitors with two new asha smartphones

The dual-SIM Asha 502 has the same screen size and camera resolution as the 503, but no 3G, which helps make it $10 cheaper.

When Nokia announced the two phones in October it also added the 500 model to the Asha line-up. That device has a 2.8-inch screen and a 2-megapixel camera. It costs $69 before taxes and subsidies and will start shipping before the end of the year.

The three phones all use an updated version of the user interface Nokia announced on the Asha 501 earlier this year.

Users can swipe on the screen to start the camera; long press to access camera settings, and swipe to switch from the image mode to the video mode or vice versa. A key feature in the Asha user interface is Fastlane, which shows recently accessed contacts, social networks and apps. It can now be personalized by users, who can choose what content they want it to show.