Earlier this week, Nokia announced a “big announcement” for folks. And here it is… a bloke wearing a standard fare cardigan, armed with probably comical looks and positions, it seems like Nokia is going to dive deep into the viral marketing pool with… a photo-based comic strip that sings the praises of the oft-maligned (by users) Nokia Ovi Store.

Today, we finally unveil (part of) the mystery.

Starting next Friday (July 30), we’re premiering an original comic series here on the Ovi Blog called “Old School”. We won’t tell you too much more about it, but it’s fun and we hope you love it.

And for those that were guessing, this isn’t a product launch or announcement. It’s just a thank you for everyone who loves Ovi and reads the blog. Share it, like it, comment on it, repost it: we’re looking forward to your reaction!

Here’s my chance to get on my soapbox.

Ok, I know I cannot be the only person that’s looking at the Nokia official blogs hoping that Nokia will finally start to do the things that they have not done in ages; effective marketing in North America. Nokia has gone from being perceived as a top notch handset manufacturer to something that you get when you want a free, subsidized phone on contract. Nokia N-series, largely unpopular with folks that don’t want to do any type of research – face it, most consumers are not willing to read more than a headline, pay more than a dime and learn more than a page of the user manual. Nokia N900, Nokia N97, Nokia N95… rare as hell in the US. Even more rare in Japan, yet another place where Nokia has stopped advertising.

So with the drama surrounding the current CEO, the fact that their stock has gone from ~$40 per share to under ~$9 per share in just two years, Nokia looks like a bust. But they’re not, they still sell millions of handsets and have open-sourced Symbian and have the open-source MeeGo partnership with Intel and the Linux Foundation. In fact, Nokia sells more than the next 2 manufacturers combined still. More than Apple, more than Blackberry. So what’s going on? Y’all can’t get advertising right? And… a friggin’ comic based on an office setting? Office Space came out in 1999, The Office (UK) came out in 2001. Nokia, it’s 2010. You guys can do much better than something so tried, so used up, so boring as an online comic.

“Old School” indeed. Nokia, get a clue.

[ Links: Nokia Ovi Blog ]