Nothing’s brand chief is fed up of ‘boring and generic’ smartphone ads—he shares his marketing strategy for taking on Samsung and Apple 

“Consumer tech’s becoming pretty boring,” says Charlie Smith, chief brand officer at Nothing, the London-based upstart which is aiming to break the mold. “Everyone just copied the success of Apple, which was about minimalism, aluminum, and glass. [Tech] really lost a lot of its personality.” 

In response, Smith is pursuing what he describes as a “retro futuristic” design approach. Many of Nothing’s smartphones and headphones feature transparent casings that leave some of the internal components exposed. Founded in 2020 by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, the company was valued at $1.3 billion after a $200 million Series C round in 2025. 

Smith sees Dyson as the last British consumer “super brand” and wants Nothing to be the next. Adam Bates, Dyson’s former head of design, now works as Nothing’s design director. 

However, Smith, who joined in January after seven years running marketing at LVMH-owned fashion house Loewe, faces an uphill challenge. Global smartphone shipments fell 20% in the third quarter of 2026, the weakest third quarter since 2012, according to Counterpoint Research, as rising memory-chip costs pushed up phone prices.  

Apple and Samsung also continue to dominate the smartphone market. Samsung’s market share rose from 19% to 23% and Apple’s increased from 18% to 22%. In order to stand out in a crowded field, Smith is taking a different approach to brand building. 

Most smartphone advertising, he says, relies on “glossy renders” and storytelling built around camera upgrades and other specs. “There’s no real community building or emotional hook,” he says. “Sometimes brands really see marketing as a formula, almost like a mathematical equation, and that’s what produces really boring, generic results.” 

Rejecing the marketing formula  

Brand building has gotten harder as marketing chiefs face growing pressure to prove their value. More than half (56%) of marketing chiefs say their CFO is pushing harder for evidence of marketing’s financial impact, according to Duke University’s 2026 CMO Survey of more than 300 marketing leaders. Of those, seven in 10 say they’ve doubled down on short-term results and sharper performance tracking as a result. 

Formulaic marketing rewards whatever delivers measurable results quickly, such as clicks and sales, over the slower work of building a brand. That pushes marketers toward ideas that have worked before, which is why, Smith says, so many ads look alike. Playing it safe can also cost more. “If you have an amazing idea, people are going to share it organically,” he says, “whereas if you’re just using paid media to boost something very predictable, you’re having to spend a lot more money to do it.” 

Smith has seen the cost of that shift firsthand. From 2015 to 2018, he ran Nike’s account for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa while working at the ad agency R/GA. Back then, he says, “Nike did not stick to a fixed schedule of campaigns. It reacted to cultural events as they happened and let local teams shape the message instead of running the same ads globally. Nike’s 2018 ‘Nothing Beats a Londoner’ campaign’, for example, was full of references only Londoners would get.” 

Later, Smith says, Nike started “focusing more on performance marketing, data, and its direct-to-consumer business.” This meant ads were judged more heavily on immediate sales and, as a result, “a lot of that magic and creativity was lost,” he adds.  

What really cuts through, Smith says, is “extreme risk taking and boldness.” He constantly challenges his team with one question: “What’s the opposite of what we would be expected to do here?” When Apple scheduled its launch the day before Nothing’s in March, Nothing graffitied over Apple’s invitation and Pei posted it online. 

Smith concedes that such questions are easier to ask at a comparatively small company, where creative risk is already part of the culture. Having control of the entire brand, including the website and store design, also helps, as ideas are less likely to be watered down as they pass between departments. 

Inviting customers into the boardroom 

Smith encourages staff outside of the marketing function to come forward with ideas. “Good ideas come from everywhere, and it’s about the leadership embracing them,” he says.  

Customer insights are also welcomed. Every year, Noting’s fan community elects a community board observer, a volunteer who attends the company’s quarterly board meetings and presents customers’ views on products and launches to its directors. Nothing shortlists the candidates, and the community votes on its forum. They have previously helped design one of its phones.  

Without the marketing budgets of Apple or Samsung, Nothing is spending on smaller, local projects aimed at its core customers. In July, it launched the Club Nothing Fund, which gives four independent creators or music collectives $10,000 each to stage a nightlife event. 

When planning these collaborations, Smith emphasizes the importance of authenticity. He says: “Are you genuinely adding something to this culture, or are you just taking from it?”  

Showing the humans behind the product 

As AI-generated content spreads, audiences have become harder to impress. A-third (30%) of Gen-Z described brands that used AI in the advertising as “inauthentic, according to an IAB survey. “We’ve lost our sense of wonder,” he says. 

AI skepticism has made it more important to show the people behind the product, according to Smith. At Nothing’s March launch at Central Saint Martins, the London art school, more than 300 students met the company’s industrial design team and tried the products. 

At Loewe, Smith showed how its products were made, filming craftspeople at work and asking content creators to post rough, unpolished TikToks that went “against the codes of luxury,” where everything has to be “perfect and glossy.” “Some of the best-performing content on digital channels is the most human and analog,” he says. 

Formulaic marketing promises certainty. Smith is betting that in a market where every phone looks the same, the bigger risk is being boring.