Nokia's Branding Oops: Lumia Can Mean "Prostitute"
Nokia's effort to recover from a burning platform surfaced yesterday in the form of the Lumia 800 and 710 Windows Phone devices. Not everyone was impressed by the device, but the Lumia will be remembered as a the first smartphone that makes the list.
There are very few electronics companies that have an explicit talent for coming up with great product names. Two exceptions would be Intel’s Pentium and Sony’s Walkman. However, electronics buyers usually have to contend with cryptic number sequences that follow product names,which are more a pain in the neck for the consumer than a way to identify and characterize a certain product. Nokia's product line, for example, has such appealing devices as the N8-00, the E7-00, the C6-01, and the C5-03. Admittedly, there's an intended technical structure behind those numbers, but I would argue that it's not the best way to market a product to consumers. A simple "iPhone" brand works much better.
Apple somehow changed the way the industry thinks about product names with the iPod. It took a while for its rivals to realize that barcode-like product names don't really work. As a result, we have devices such as Microsoft's Zune, which made those products much more identifiable and memorable (even if the Zune is dead now). Nokia must have had the same thought: a spicy, phonetically appealing product name with a slightly artistic touch. Lumia was the winner in Nokia's smartphone naming contest and was – this is a wild guess – probably chosen as it relates to the Latin word lumen, which can be used for lantern, or lamp, but most often refers to light.
History should have taught Nokia's branding managers and agencies that there must be a certain diligence when creating artificial product names. Could that new name already be in existence, possibly in other languages, along with their slang versions? A simple Google search could have told Nokia that lumia carries the meaning of prostitute in conversational Spanish. I am looking forward to those special editions of Lumia phones. There could be a rather tasteful Lovers Lane Lumia phone wrapped in lace, a slightly more aggressive version that gives a rubber bumper case new meaning, or a raunchy Flagship model that comes with all the bells and whistles, including pre-loaded databases for every major city, website subscriptions and plenty of over-age-18 apps. Someone must put those 25 GB of free online storage to good use, right?
In all seriousness, could someone have told Nokia to simply Google the Lumia product name? Wasn't this supposed to be the big rescue effort for Nokia? Wasn't Microsoft behind this project, and didn't Microsoft say that Nokia will get special access to Microsoft resources? For sure, the Lumia phones will be remembered as products with one of the worst product names in a list with candidates such as the Ford Pinto (Brazilian slang for male genitals), the Mitsubishi Pajero (could refer to a masturbating male in Spanish), or Sierra Mist. (Mist is used in German as a word with the equivalent meaning of crap.)
If it were not for the product name, the Lumia appears to be a rather forgettable phone that lacks the degree of effort I would have expected from Nokia, assuming that it is serious about saving its burning platform. Microsoft is doing well at squeezing the Android market, thanks to its patents, but it would have needed a stunner from Nokia to give Windows Phone a chance. So far, the equation still does not work. Two losers do not equal one winner. Competitively, the Lumia devices are priced adjacent to its high-end rivals but offer little to no differentiation in its industrial design and GUI – with the exception of a navigation and music service. Will that be differentiation enough? I am not sure. If I consider the resources Nokia has available, the first Lumia devices are disappointing. Remember, this was the company that dominated the cell phones space for more than a decade. Therefore, it should be a company that is capable of driving innovation, not just following it with a distance of a year, in a best case scenario.
Nokia should have answered the question: How will this smartphone be remembered by our customers? It's obvious today that it will be remembered because of its name, but, besides that, what is really memorable about the Nokia Windows Phone? There is no standout feature that is convincing enough to make me wait in line for the device. From a design, GUI and even an app perspective, this is just a me-too-phone and, in my opinion, an indication that Nokia could drift away into meaninglessness. Among Windows Phone smartphones, it may be one of the more appealing devices. Still, we don't know when this product will come to the U.S., and being the best Windows Phone wasn't the goal anyway. The goal was to be the best smartphone, no questions asked. In its current shape, the Lumia won't save Nokia, nor will it save Windows Phone.
However, the name is an interesting choice. I won't argue with that.
(Prostitute image from Shutterstock)
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So what? It means prostitute. Are people afraid they're going to get hearing AIDS?
... while iPhone means "overhyped junk" in nearly all lanuages.
Obviously a lot of research went into choosing a name.
Stephen Elop was prostituting Nokia's future, fortunes and patents to Microsoft.
Whoever picked the Lumia name: well played.
I'm betting, that before all this hype around the name, 99% of the below 30 year olds of latin speaking countries, didn't know about that word. This might actually make the phones more desireable with the 16-20 year-olds...
So what? It means prostitute. Are people afraid they're going to get hearing AIDS?
+1
An article bashing Nokia (and MSFT) by Wolfgang. Why am I not surprised? You're a hardcore Apple fan, we all get it.
Nice. The Lumia is in my pants.
I saw a comment calling this out yesterday when they released and it was posted on toms. In before the media!
So what if it means prostitute. Just install a hacked version of Siri and you're even.
So what?! your name also means "a gang of wolves" if you look at it in a funny way!! how's that?! (oops yes I said it!)
To be precise, it's "Lumi".
has the editor already had the pleasure to review it? Please share your impressions, not just the verdict ("forgettable")
seriously, "siri" in Persian means something that smells like "sir" (= garlic)... how about that?!
or "Goh" (a Chinese name) means literally "shit" in Persian... "Kos" (another Chinese name) means pussy (I'm serious)! and "Koon" (again, a Chinese name) means "ass" (again, I'm serious)!!
My point is... SO WHAT?! should they look at every single language in the world to see if the chosen name means something bad or funny in another language?!!
It wouldn't be so bad to have a prostitute with me at all times!!!
Starting to understand now, why people say Wolfgang is Apple biased. In every article i've been reading, even when not related to, manages to find a way to speak highly about Apple products and bashing everything else, whatever the brand.
It's recurrent and starts to feel annoying, even for people who like Apple. It's this kind of people that make others hate a brand.
I would understand this kind of opinions in a personal blog, not in a major site like Tom's.
nokia is now microsoft's lumia....??????
BS. A device is memorable because of the functionality, not because of the name. Nokia N95 will remain forever as one of the last top non-touch smartphones - because of its functionality, not the name.
I'd be a prostitute any time rather than an old bore like Wolfgang. Life must be sad being an iLemming with exceptionally small brain.
I bet it will sell well in the Spanish market (meaning like half of US or something like that).
just change the name in certain country that have problem in language clash. anyway, do not forget dell peju as one of the failures in naming device (peju is a unofficial language of sperm in bahasa).
If i'm paying $600 for a phone it might as well be a prostitute as also.
Third paragraph in and I thought, "must be a wolfgang article." Scrolled up, yup, sure was...
takeaway from these tech-namings:
elop is pole backwards.....
apple's iphone has ass voice recognition.
don't use too much lumia in a pajero or your pinto will get mist-y.
in spanish prostitute is also said "lumi", but "lumia" has no meaning and it doesn't even sound similar to spanis person. I wonder if the one that wrote that knows spanis ;-)
Ignoring shirak's point (i.e. that the entire story is on a false premise anyway), so what if there's a dodgy connotation to the name. Look at the Wii - that did quite well despite (at least in the UK) sounding like a common (for children at least) work for urine / urination
i would buy a prostitute, noting can beat telling people "i own a prostitute, want to see it"
Chris Angelini is the World-Wide Editor-in-Chief for Tom's Hardware.
Wolfgang aspires to be the iCrappy Editor in Chief for Apple's PR department.
Heck you're not even a registered Tom's member, Wolfgang! Blasphemy!
Article: Waste of time
Comments: Priceless
Lumia sounds like a word in Spanish slang (in a small area of a country) for prostitute, no Brazilian.
Hey Wolfgang did you search Siri...it sounds like a word for butthole in Japanese.
An article bashing Nokia (and MSFT) by Wolfgang. Why am I not surprised? You're a hardcore Apple fan, we all get it.
Are you saying he's not right? Because he is. MS needs a big bang phone, not generic with no wow.
@__-_-_-__ : you're absolutely correct, "Brazilian" doesn't exist as a language (though it's often referred as "brasileiro", meaning "from Brazil" by Portuguese people). There is, however, Portuguese, or European Portuguese (Pt-Pt) Brazilian Portuguese (Pt-Br). Same thing for "Spanish" (though it is very common to use the term outside of Spain), Spanish people don't usually like to be referred as speaking "Spanish", but "Castellano", which is the main, but not only, language spoken in Spain and the official language (with regional variants) in Latin America.
So, @writer (and @editor, too), please check these kind of things before posting, please.
As for the word having a very dodgy meaning on one language slang, well, "mist" happens... I have a fairly extensive contact with "Castellano", and I have never actually heard that word. More important than crying "it's a naughty name", it would be better to know how prevalent that word is in actual use.
For instance, I remember a very old Ford model that was renamed when it was introduced in Portugal: the "Ascona". Perfectly neutral name in most countries, but in Portugal a "cona" is a VERY harsh slang term which virtually 100% of the population able to speak knows about (and has probably used at least once in their lifetime, with many people using it on a fairly regular basis) that roughly translates to the female genitalia. So the car had to change its name...
Also, anyone from France care to remind us how the Toyota MR2 is named over there? MR2 reads as "merdeux", or literally, shitty, in French, btw.
I seriously doubt Nokia hasn't considered this (A LOT of research goes into naming a product nowadays), and if it is any serious problem, the affected market(s) will most likely have an alternative naming (probably Searay), so not to cause any issues and loss of sales. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will (or should) stay relatively oblivious to those name changes.
Cheers.
Miguel