Some of the momentum that Nokia gained following last week’s announcement of its new Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 smartphones was halted when it was revealed that an ad for its PureView camera technology was faked. The ad featured a “demonstration” of the PureView’s image stabilization technology. However, a reflection in a window gave away that the camera filming a girl on a bycicle was actually part of a full camera crew with high-quality video equipment.
Nokia did issue an apology immediately after their ruse was discovered, and stated that the ad was only meant to “simulate” the image stabilization that would be possible with the Lumia 920’s camera. To be technical about it, Nokia only apologized for not putting a disclaimer on the ad, but the whole thing was a silly and unneeded screw-up. The company has since released a real demonstration of it’s PureView technology, which is impressive enough on its own.
Today, Nokia told Boomberg Businessweek that it will have an ethics and compliance officer officer conduct an investigation and prepare an independent report on the incident. Sounds like some heads are going to roll at Nokia.
It’s all a shame, really, since Nokia’s new smartphones look pretty slick and well-designed. The company should be able to market the phones on their own strengths. Nokia has now fully thrown in with Windows Phone 8, tying its future as a high-end smartphone manufacturer to Microsoft’s new tile-based OS ecosystem. According to Bloomberg, Nokia’s stock is down 45% since the beginning of this year.