Nokia Rebrand — Old vs. New?

To evaluate the effectiveness of Nokia's recent logo overhaul, this Logo Test compares the new 2023 logo with the 45-year-old iconic Nokia logo.

This week, Nokia, once the king of mobile phones, made headlines with the announcement of a massive layoff of 14,000 jobs. In February, Nokia introduced a refreshed brand identity, unveiling a new logo that replaced its iconic 45-year-old logo. This rebranding effort was aimed to reintroduce Nokia as more than just a mobile phone brand, positioning it as a forward-thinking “B2B technology innovation leader”. The announcement of layoffs has prompted many to question the effectiveness of Nokia’s rebranding strategy. Specifically, the new logo didn’t receive the warm online welcome Nokia anticipated:

In this season of layoffs, @nokia just laid of few lines from its logo.#layoffs #Nokia pic.twitter.com/2vl6TCnwDd
— zartaj.lens | PUSH 🔔💬 (@Zartaj20031) March 14, 2023

If you are eliminating vertical components from logo , then remove ‘I’ also. #Nokia pic.twitter.com/WclL5o0GZ6
— Anupam Biswas (@flyanupam) February 27, 2023

To delve deeper into the effectiveness of Nokia’s logo transformation, a Logo Test was performed to compare the new logo with its iconic predecessor.

In summary, the respondents favoured the classic logo, finding it more likeable, polished, and trustworthy. It’s worth noting that despite respondents perceiving the new logo as more original, both logos were rated as equally less elegant.

Although the new logo was designed to convey Nokia’s transformation into a B2B technology innovation brand, respondents generally hold similar company perceptions for both logos, with the majority associating both with the telecommunications industry. In addition, they felt confused towards the new logo, echoing the sentiment shared by the online community.