Nothing’s content marketing is just as unique as its interface

In 2020, Carl Pei, who was the director of OnePlus Global, quit the company to start his own consumer electronics brand, Nothing. Four years on, Nothing has carved out a niche in the smartphone industry, with Pei leading the charge from the front. The brand is unique in both its build and its marketing strategy. 

For a four-year-old brand that launched its first phone in 2022, Nothing has done remarkably well in terms of numbers. The brand recently crossed four million units shipped worldwide and reached over $500 million in revenue last year. Keep in mind, they are up against the giants of the game, such as Samsung and OnePlus, considering the price points Nothing operates in.

The Nothing Phone 2a, the most recent release from the Nothing lineup, sold more than 100,000 units in its first day after release. Nothing’s budget sub-brand, CMF, sold 100,000 units of CMF Phone 1 in three hours after going on sale in India. That is impressive, as per many tech analysts.

For the unacquainted, Nothing has been lauded for its unconventional transparent design, with its distinctly minimalistic form factor that almost gives it a ‘work in progress’ aesthetic. Another element of its build that people have come to recognise the brand by is the LED light stripes on the back panel of Nothing phones that constitute its signature glyph interface.

Trivia: The Glyph Interface is a feature on some Nothing phones that uses light strips on the back of the phone to help users communicate and interact. Each preset Nothing ringtone and notification sound effect has a special Glyph pattern for an incoming call or message notification.

This distinctive brand identity seems to have permeated Nothing's marketing strategy as well. Atypical of the category’s standard marketing modus operandi, Nothing’s digital footprint is a mix of hardcore content marketing and some social media dibble-dabble. But what sets it apart is how blunt and direct the comms strategy of Nothing is.

Recently, the brand released a video on its YouTube channel, in which members of its design team addressed the negative feedback received about the latest 3.0 release of the Hate Nothing Operating System.

Executives from the product development, design, and marketing teams read out the negative consumer reviews of the new OS and shared their opinions on the matter. This included explaining some new design tweaks in the OS that didn’t register well with the fans.

This piece of content is in line with Nothing’s overall content marketing strategy, which perhaps makes up the majority of its digital footprint.

The brand is known to feature its CEO, Carl Pei, in this content format, where he often delves into the technicalities of the smartphone market, comparative analysis with other brands, and reacts to popular reviewers and their opinions on Nothing, among other things.

A few months ago, Pei sat in front of a camera reacting to what popular tech YouTubers such as MKBHD, Mrwhosetheboss, LinusTechTips, among others had to say about the brand.

Moreover, just a few weeks ago, the brand even revealed to the world some features in Nothing OS 3.0 that they copied from other companies, such as the now defunct Windows OS for Nokia, Nokia’s very own Symbian OS, and even iPhone. 

Trivia: In the video, Nothing’s software creative director suggests that they were inspired by iPhone’s skeuomorphism. Skeuomorphism is a design style that uses visual cues to imitate the appearance or function of physical objects, e.g., a gear icon that is now universally used to represent settings.

The thing is, what other brand in the market do you think would come on camera to tell you all the things they copied from others? It’s not like other brands aren’t conspicuously imitating each other’s features in their own styles. With Nothing, it almost seems like the brand is giving the bigger players their flowers.

As impressive as the brand's numbers are, as of 2024, Nothing is not even close to competing with the larger enterprises in the space (as Carl Pei will tell you). Is it, therefore, understandable why the brand is enjoying the luxury of being unconventionally transparent in its comms strategy?