Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The OnePlus Hasselblad Hype: A Lesson In Licensing”.
( paper rustling ), Oh yup, well, that’s just about as gross as I remember: it. (, laughing ), ( chewing loudly ). If you’ve been on tech Twitter. This week, you may have noticed a bevy of bloggers and YouTubers sharing selfies with freeze dried ice cream sent over from smartphone maker OnePlus.. I got one too., A phone-sized box, packed with a crunchy and creamy snack, ready to eat anywhere on the planet. And more important than the way it tastes is why it’s freeze dried in the first place, because it’s ostensibly ice cream for astronauts.. That ties in with the branding on the box and landing page when you follow the similarly space-themed URL on it..
Why is OnePlus suddenly struck with space fever? Oh, the answer has to do with OnePlus’, historically underwhelming smartphone, camera performance and historically much more prominent camera company called Hassleblad and OnePlus’ shrewd understanding of just how powerful licensing can be. Licensing is more prevalent in mobile tech than most people realize it.. For example, if you watched last year’s review of the Moto 360 smartwatch you’ll know that, despite the name and elements like the classic bat wing, logo Motorola had very little. If anything, to do with that product’s manufacture..
It was actually created by a Canadian company who paid a fee to license the Motorola design elements on the correct assumption that people would be more likely to buy a Moto 360 smartwatch than one stamped with the actual creator’s brand. Ebuynow. Licensing also plays a smaller part in how publications and yes, YouTube channels make money.. You know how you’ll sometimes see manufacturers make commercials featuring reviewers thoughts on their product. Well, when it’s done, who legally those are licensed, clips., Meaning the reviewer or in my case the publisher, has been compensated in exchange for the use of that intellectual property. And yes, full disclosure.
My own content has been licensed for use in some of those commercials in the past, including some by OnePlus.. If you wan na learn more about that see. The ethics policy on my website. And licensing has also long played a big role in making phone cameras seem more capable than they are by leveraging the names of heavy hitting camera.
Companies. 14 years ago, Nokia partnered with Carl Zeiss to craft the lenses of the legendary N95., More recently Zeiss partnered, with Sony to optimize some elements of its Xperia smartphone cameras.. Before that, the Blackberry Priv featured a camera branded by German optics company Schneider Kreuznach and in probably the most effective example of co-branding Huawei, has for years enjoyed a tight relationship with German camera legend Leica. And usually when this conversation comes up, you’ll hear from two extreme Camps.
The first falls for it hook, line and sinker.. They say look. It says Zeiss right on the back of the phone.. Obviously it’s the best camera ever. And the second more informed. But often more cynical group says no look.
They just paid a million dollars to put the word Leica on the same phone.. It’S pure chicanery., The truth, as usual, is more nuanced. (, light, melodic, music ). How effective a licensing agreement is depends on how much the companies have actually collaborated on the end.
Product. A positive example, in my view, is Zeiss and Sony, because Zeiss aplied its T-star coatings to the Xperia cameras, so that internal reflections were reduced. Less effective was the Schneider and Blackberry alignment which either didn’t do anything to begin with, or it wasn’t enough to overcome. The Priv’s other deficiencies. And the result was a mediocre camera. And again, in my opinion, Huawei’s Leica partnership is probably the most successful of all, because not only are the lenses built to Leica specifications, the company also has input into which camera sensors are selected for the Phones, how the photos are processed through the phone’s ISP and then there’s the nerdy bonus of the user being able to apply filters based on the color profiles of classic Leica film cameras., For what it’s worth, that information is correct.
As of 2018, when Huawei took a bunch of media folks, myself included on a tour of Leica’s global headquarters., I remember our group interview being contentious at times, because Huawei obviously wasn’t expecting us to press them so hard on so many details. But it was worth it because it gave me some of the most valuable insight I’ve been able to get into how smartphone cameras are made. (, light melodic music ) To bring it back to OnePlus. According to all the leaks we’ve seen, it seems certain at this point that the company has worked with Swedish camera company Hasselblad on at least one of its new smartphones, probably the OnePlus 9 Pro., And this is where the space ice, cream and moonshot teasers come in.. See Hassleblad is more than just 180 year old company..
It was the first company to build cameras specifically designed for the space program.. Hasselblad cameras have gone into orbit on to mercury and Gemini spacecraft of the’60s.. They took the first indoor and outdoor space selfies during those missions. They’ve captured countless images from the space shuttle program, both here on earth and in orbit.. And yes, it was Hasselblad cameras that snapped some of the most iconic photographs ever taken from the surface of the moon.. All that answers why OnePlus is so dead set on pushing the space angle on all its most recent teasers.. The question is how effective that partnership will be at making OnePlus smartphone cameras, true contenders, And we will not know that until we’re actually able to shoot with the things. ( light melodic music ). I know – maybe that sounds obvious, but I thought it important to say it especially right now, because already we’re seeing so much buzz around this Hasselblad partnership..
So much reporting that feeds into the hype that OnePlus wants to create. And importantly Hassleblad – has licensed its brand to smartphone makers. Before.. First time I can find a record of was in 2014 on the Vertu Signature Touch which Android Central’s Derek Kessler danged for what he called an inexcusably poor camera performance. Yeah.. The second time was on 2016’s Moto Mod accessory for Motorola’s Z, line of phones which had impressive zoom ability but underwhelmed in basically, every other aspect.
And the acquisition of a majority stake in Hassleblad by DJI a few years ago only further muddies the waters.. In short, we don’t know what to expect from this partnership, but these precedents are not exactly reassuring.. So when OnePlus announces, the OnePlus 9 family pay special attention to the words it uses regarding Hassleblad.
The weaser words like they tuned our camera performance or they certified our cameras or the granddaddy of all phrases that mean nothing. We worked closely together.. None of that actually tells you anything., For my part, I’ll, be pressing OnePlus on this. In any interviews, I may have leading up to the launch. And I’ll report back what I hear in whatever reviews I produce after I receive the phones. To close I’d like to make the point that, despite its cosmic branding, freeze, dried ice cream is not actually a Part of the space program. It turns out in micro, gravity, good old fashioned, regular ice cream works just fine..
It seems that even NASA is aware of the power of perception and good PR.. I reached out to OnePlus for further insight, but the company declined to comment on the record.. As always, neither OnePlus nor any other company was given any editorial input into this video. Nor is this a paid promotion. Obviously.
Please subscribe to the Mr. Mobile on YouTube. So you don’t miss my OnePlus 9 review, which will feature the real-world testing that hopefully will answer some of the questions. I’Ve laid out here. Until next time.
Thanks for watching., And if you can’t stay home, then stay safe and mask up when you’re around others. As you stay mobile, my friends. ( light melodic music ) .