Earlier today we (my other company JAJDO), launched our second iPad and iPhone app. This one is called Buildo History or as in the picture below if you’re Russian. (we’ve translated it into 18 languages)

Buildo History. This one translated into Russian.

This is the second app in the Buildo Series. Our idea has been to create a simple yet creative app that allows for kids to create their own stories with as little guidance as possible. True creativity isn’t about us grown-ups creating rules that they need to follow. Our children will have plenty of that when they grow older. The Buildo series is more about playing around, having a good time and creating stories.

It’s kinda funny cause when grown-ups look at the Buildo apps they tend to say “Hmm, it looks a little simple”. When kids play with it they tend to say nothing but instead play with it for hours..or actually first play and then tell stories. My daughters Ebba and Linn often ask me to go away for half an hour and then come back. When I’m back in the room the show and tell me the story. It’s often a great laugh!

If you’ve got kids you should check it out. I think they’ll like it!

The first app that my mobile app start-up JAJDO released last sunday, Buildo Rescue Sticker book, suddenly turned up in the New and Noteworthy section in the Apple app store. This is off course great news! There’s more coming soon!

We’re VERY honored about being featured here!

Nothing more to say!

Sometime last year I was approached by Vasakronan, Swedens largest property brand with a property portfolio valued at SEK 80.3 billion. Being a market leader the felt their digital presence had to reflect that position. Their question: What do we do? As always I teamed up with Caroline Karlström and accepted the challenge to answer that question. In this project I took on the role as both head of strategy and concept as well as actually delivering the top level designs of the new Vasakronan that Britny later implemented and refined.

This is what we did. Parts of the new Vasakronan digital brand presence

The new Vasakronan.se runs WordPress!

Me and Caroline started the project with an analysis phase and analysed their existing presence, the traffic to their site, the content, the design and the site structure. We interviewed representatives from Vasakronan as well as their clients and potential prospects. We also performed an extensive technical analysis of their technical platform. Their brand presence online was running on Episerver, one of Swedens most common content management platforms and the front end was about three years old. It was classical site with tons of sections and also some flash content.

The old Vasakronan.se site.

On top of that the site was connected to their back end, partly built on Sharepoint. Already from start I felt that there was no need for this complex set up. If you also include the fact that Vasakronan intended to lead – not follow, then I also thought we needed to look at modern platforms such as WordPress.

Once we’ve passed the analysis phase, it was clear that there really was no need to run Vasakronan off Episerver. Instead we decided to give WordPress a try. WordPress would, beside the fact that the platform is free, give Vasakronan the ability to adapt to the world outside, fast! WordPress has got some 20000 developers devoted to making sure the platform is up to date. Future branding is all about making sure you stay on top technology instead of being dictated by technology due to the fact that you’re stuck in a slow developed platform. Vasakronans ambition moving forward is also to be a part of that community, meaning develop new plugins and functionalities that other brands can make good use of.

A new brand plattform needed to be digitalized.

Part from the fact that Vasakronan’s digital presence was a couple of years old another important fact was also that they we’re redesigning their brand language. Not their logo – but their tone of voice, their graphical expressions, colors and how they worked with images. This was a challenge.

Parts of the Vasakronan brand manual that we had to digitalize.

Their new brand language was classical yet bold, however it was clearly developed to be used offline. I’m personally a big fan of simplicity and there was something in that brand presentation we were handed that struck a chord inside me.

The new Vasakronan.se – on brand!

The challenge to bring this stuff online was something that made me smile. After some tweaking back and fourth I felt that I had nailed the graphical concept quite well. It was fresh, clean, usable and on brand.

Great content and simplicity is the new black.

Until now Vasakronan had been working quite a lot with SEM activities. However, their SEO presence was nothing to brag about. In order for this to change I developed a concept that was based on how blogs work. Basically, the content bloggers pushed ends up further down the site structure as more content is being pushed.

An example of how content from the first page is being pushed down in other sections

Considering the website analytic part of the project pointed in the direction few, if any visitors, were interesting surfing the Vasakronan website, instead people landed on one page, clicked one or two pages to get what they were there for and then left, I felt we needed to simplify everything – the site structure, the navigation, the amount of pages and way you search for new properties and of course also the design.

Simplicity was something we kept on striving for all through the project

Yet we also needed people to actually find Vasakronan. There’s of course tons of traffic ending up on Vasakronan via typed url’s or a search for Vasakronan. But there’s also a huge potential in attracting people through generic search. In order to establish a broader and better presence on Google we decided to make better use of Vasakronan’s customer magasine ‘En bättre värd’ (A better host).

Making sure content is spread over multiple platforms to do good for the brand.

On the old site this magazine was published once a month as a PDF. Fine, the PDF attracts Google spiders too – but the content is not very readable online. This magazine was packed with quality content that will do a great job when the spiders comes crawling. Said and done. We established a section called Inspiration & lägen (Inspiration and locations) where the magazine is now portioned in smaller bits over time – just like a blogger would publish it.

iPhone and iPads. What should you do?

If you ask around I think most agencies out there will tell you that you must have a site for mobiles and one for iPads and other tables. I beg to differ. My point of view is that the visitors you have will visit your brand from different devices but that doesn’t mean they’re interested in learning new ways to navigate depending on which device they use today.

People should not have to learn new navigations from one device to another.

This is why I, when I started to design the site, aimed to create a design that would work on your desktop computer, your laptop, iPad and ultimately the smartphone of your choice. Of course it’s important to make sure you’ve thought about mobile sites and apps too. I don’t think there’s ever a need for a specific app or mobile interface to browse the generic content on Vasakronan.se if it’s built and designed right.

Trying out how content could be swiped in potential future apps.

However I definitely think there’s a need for apps that gives landlords, tennants and other target groups the ultimate way to access information and nurture their relation with vasakronan. For these needs we of course designed extra proof of concepts to make sure we didn’t launch anything that could not be developed further.

Now it’s time to put the concept into action – we need more pro’s!

Brands like Vasakronan hire me to make change happen. My assignment usually includes a strategy phase, a concept phase and a visualisation phase. With a set of different tools such as strategic and technical analysis, problem definition, conceptual and creative develoment and prototyping I help brands, in this case Vasakronan, to establish a communication platform. It’s extremely important to deliver the conceptual and creative concepts without having to think about your own organisation – this is why I do not recommend having an agency that delivers both the concept and the implementation – it usually ends up being something that agency makes money off suggestion.

In this case me and Caroline together with different freelancers delivered a concept that focused on creating the best possible solution online for Vasakronan – now it was time to find the best fitted consultant that could take our concept and implement it. In order to find that consultant we, together with Vasakronan, selected five agencies. After having heard the agencies present themselves we also asked them to present how they were to implement the concept we had delivered for Vasakronan. Britny, Swedish kick ass web agency that I’d been working with before, delivered a fantastic presentation. It was clear that both their creative department and technical department understood why we’d chosen the solutions we had and how we intended them to be implemented.

The listing of properties – the concept brought all the way by Britny

Said and done – Britny and Vasakronan came to an agreement and they started working on the implementation of our project. From our side Caroline left the project and I stayed on board to secure that the concept we’d delivered would be treated right. It was also important to make sure the kept to our technical strategy when using WordPress as the content management system. We’d built in tons of strategical and graphical executions that only made sense if you’d built them into WordPress the right way. The team at Britny did a fantastic job when taking our concept further. They treated it with great care. I especially found it rewarding that their lead designer, Daniel Stridsberg and head of tech Fillip Wastman, embraced the design platform I had initiated and nurtured it well. Except for Daniel and Fillip the team consisted of Iyob Mesfin, Jonas Rogert and Jonas Eriksson all equally important.

The result?

Vasakronan has managed to revamp their online presence in a magnificant way. The new site is easier to use, we’ve taken away all second level menues we’ve could, the design is on brand and may I say so – ground braking in terms of sitting on top of a content management system, it’s like nothing else and differentiates Vasakronan from their competition and it works like a charm on any platform. Knowing what they’re up to behind the scenes I’m proud to say this is one of the projects I’m most pleased with during 2011! But then again – that’s what I think

Thank you Britny for sticking to our guns. Thank you Vasakronan for daring to be different!

Rock on!

Some of you probably know about my little venture called JAJDO. Together with Jonas Theder and Andreas Wålm I’ve set out to build an app factory. So far it’s a small factory and it’s taken some time to fine tune the assembly line but we’ve finally made it. Our first app is live in the app store!

Our first app. We’ve made history (at least in our books : )

The Buildo Rescue Sticker Book

This app is called Buildo Rescue and features 103 hand designed, full-color stickers themed around the Emergency & Rescue Services. There are boats, police cars, ambulances, helicopters, jet skis, scuba divers, doctors, nurses and loads more to choose between!

Build your own scenes in panoramic soundscapes

It’s simple yet cool sticker book app for kids aged 1-7 focused on engaging children’s natural creativity. Studies have shown that children who are able to create or make sense of narratives at an early age have a greater connection to knowledge and greater potential for self-expression.

We’re nr:1 in the Swedish Education category in Sweden

The app was launched yesterday and today we learned that it’s already the Nr:1 in the Swedish education category in the app store. Wow. I’ll tell you – this building products for children’s stuff is fantastic! So, if you haven’t tried it yet – head over to JAJDO and have a look at the app or head straight to the app store. psst – Read the Moms and Dads zone before getting started!

Moving forward we’re hoping to launch somewhere between 5 and 7 more apps before christmas. Most aimed towards kids 1-7 years and some meant for you parents of those small wonders of the world!

Have fun learning!

(This is a Swedish post covering the 24 Hours Live event in May earlier this year)

Tidigare i år, närmare bestämt i början av Maj, genomförde jag tillsammans med Göran Adlén årets kanske mest korkade eller geniala idé. Ett enkelt koncept. Vi skulle spendera 24 timmar non-stop i hotelbaren, något slags världsrekord?, på ett av sveriges coolaste hotel, Clarion Sign Hotel, och föreläsa om framtidens kommunikations och affärslandskap samt hur det kommer påverka vårt samhälle och oss människor. Vi kallade konceptet för 24 Hours Live.

Therese Reuterswärd fångar oss med sin’telefon’ någonstans från baren.

Som om det inte var nog övertalade vi vår gode vän och ‘thincasting’ expert Robin Danehav att sända hela eventet live över nätet vilket skulle ge oss möjlighet att interagera inte bara med publiken på plats utan också de som följde oss via nätet. Sagt och gjort. Robin riggade tillsammans med Petter Karlsson och satte sig bakom kamerorna.

Klockan 12:00 den 6:e maj slog vi på (live) strömmen för att sedan hålla låda 24 timmar i sträck. Utan att Sova. Utan att ta pauser. Bara tala oavbrutet.

När klockan ett helt dygn senare åter slog 12:00 kunde vi blicka tillbaka på 24 fantastiska timmar där mer än 3000 personer på olika sätt följt livesändningen som inte marknadsförts mer än via några blogginlägg samt någon enstaka Tweet dagarna innan. Vi var helt enkelt osäkra på om vi skulle orka prata oavbrutet i 24 timmar och vågade därför inte göra för stor sak av det hela.24 timmar efter att sändningen gick igång så kunde vi dock konstatera – vi höll oss vakna, enligt tittarna lyckades vi i stort sätt leverera intressant innehåll 24 timmar i sträck (nåja, det var kanske lite djupt där runt 5-tiden på morgonen) och Robin behöll skärpan och levererade sveriges, om inte världens längsta non-stop livesändning via Internet utan att byta personal.

Alla 24 timmarna finns nu upplagda som enskilda entimmes program på Blip. Hoppa gärna in där och titta. Jag själv vill här i blogposten särskilt lyfta fram några favoriter.

24 Hours 12:00-13:00 – Vad är 24 Hours och framtida möten.

Den första timmen – i vilken Göran Adlén och Johan Ronnestam efter visst teknikstrul som löstes på sekunder av Robin Danehav och Petter finner trygghet i formatet, talar om ångestdockor och Thailändska humöransikten, presenterar hur 24 Hours kom till, det framtida mötet och slutligen om att våga misslyckas.

24 Hours – 16:00 -17:00 – Framtidens skola.

När klockan slår 16 börjar diskussionen om de viktigaste människorna i världen – våra barn. Efter att Johan Ronnestam leder tittarna igenom sin bloggpost ‘Tänk om’ så förgyller Rickard Gatarski timmen med sin närvaro och sina tankar och Mattias Östmar förklarar vad som behöver ske för att skolan ska förändras. Det handlar om avskolning, skattebortfall, teknologi, kreativitet och barnarbete.

24 Hours 04:00 – 04:30 – Intervju med Jerry Silfwer

Timmen mitt i natten i vilken vi har äran att bjuda in och få samtala med Jerry Silfwer om framtidens PR och kommunikation. Jerry är Executive Digital Strategist på Whispr Group, Inc. New York samt superbloggare på Doktor Spinn.

Stort tack till dig Jerry för att du ställde up helt spontant efter vår inbjudan via Skype.

24 Hours 10:00 – 11:00 – Robin Danehav om Thincasting samt vi dissar etablerade branchmedia.

24 Hours börjar närma sig sitt slut. Vad vore bättre än att då gå igenom hur vi faktiskt lyckats öppna en temporär TV kanal och sända live 24 timmar i sträck med bara internetuppkoppling och digitalkameror. Robin Danehav intervjuas av Göran och Johan. Du som är sugen på att testa det här själv – missa inte det här avsnittet. Bruttolistan över vad som behövs hittar du här.

24 Hours 11:00 – 12:00 – Sammanfattning av 24 timmars livesändning också spontana presenter.

Sista timmen är kommen. Vi inleder med en mastodontsammanfattning av hela dygnet. Otroligt många lärdomar, fantastiskt engagemang, spännande diskussioner och några misslyckanden. Vi tar också 5 minuter var och reflekterar över vad vi individuellt tyckt om dygnet. När det så blir dags att gå av scen får vi celebert besök av Brit Stakston och Rickard Gatarski som har med sig spontana presenter och blommor. Otroligt rörande. Alla listorna som skrevs under dygnet hittar du här.

Resten av timmarna hittar du här på vår Blip kanal eller så slår du dig ner och tittar igenom alla 24 timmarna på en gång.

En snabb sammanfattning av saker som hände lite här och var.

Vi lade ut punkter på vår Posterous blogg efter varje timme eller ‘åsiktsblock’. Riktigt kul att se hur vi lärde oss saker under resans gång samt att vi blev bättre och bättre på att interagera med publiken.

Johan Lange bloggade både här och där. Malin Ströman tyckte vi såg fräscha ut efter en lång natt. Mera Business skrev en härlig blänkare. Och precis när nästan allt var slut, då dök även IDG upp. De traditionella aktörerna är inte helt insomnade

Slutligen så vill jag rikta ett stort tack till Ludvig Lindblom (aka @internuts ) som tog det fantastiska initiativet att samla alla 3190! mentions på #24live som Twittrades under de 24 timmarna som vi höll på. Som om inte det vore nog så sammanställde han också statistik över Twittrandet. 3190 Tweets. 1467 stycken via Tweetdeck. Flest mentions mellan 20:00 och 21:00 på torsdagskvällen. @KarinTyden var flitigast med 111 stycken hashtags. Härlig konversation att titta tillbaka på.

Som RichardGatarski Twittrade ut. “#24live hade aldrig funkat utan en socialt medietränad (vad vi förr kallade) publik.”

(ps. Vi fick faktiskt klagomål. En gäst påpekade att om man satt och talade för människor skulle man inte hålla på och pilla med datorn samtidigt

Tack för allt stöd! Tack Göran. Tack Robin. Tack Petter. Tack Clarion Sign Hotel som lät oss sitta där och babbla.

As of monday this week you can spot the latest TVC created for Marginalen Bank.

This sweet little flick is the latest short film (I see it more as a short film than a TVC) in a series of three (1 & 2) created by me for Marginalen Bank, the brand I took part in developing and launching last fall. This time I’ve written and Art Directed it. As usual I’ve partnered with Caroline Karlström to make sure the project was delivered on time and quality. This time we contracted Mr Potemkin, aka Magnus Östergren to make sure the dream came alive.

Malin Erkonnen made us all smile with her fantastic illustrations and finally as always we had Erik Heusler produce the music.

This is of course just one of many activities going on right now but I wanted to share this little beauty with you.

I hope you like it!

Some of you might have followed my blog since way back while others followed me only a couple of days. So I decided it was time to dig into Google Analytics and gather my top 100 blog posts, based on traffic, (I have written 596 to this date) between the years 2005 and 2011 for you to read.

I did actually start my first blog back in 2002 but quickly stopped blogging. It was more of an installation experiment. Then in 2005 I slowly started posting again. Up until now I’ve had over a half a million pageviews and 367374 unique visitors dropping in.

Oh, by the way. If there’s anything you like – please Tweet it or put it on your FB page. It would make me happy.

So here we go:

The Top 100 posts on the future of communication by Johan Ronnestam posted between 2005 and 2011 Have a good read!

1. Pixel Art Has Become Vintage Technology
2. 3 Social Media Models That Will Guide Your Brand Into The Conversation Landscape
3. A Book, MashUp, PDF or Whatever You Wanna Call It By Johan Ronnestam
4. 10 Packaging Concepts That Bring Boring Objects & Products to Life
5. The Essential Guide On How To Start And Configure A Blog That Rocks The World
6. Svenska politiker i sociala och digital media under valet 2010. Några råd på vägen – Det handlar om vem du är, vad du tycker och hur vi kan bli vänner.
7. Dear SAAB. Your Global Web Site Sucks.
8. Controlling your brand with creative excellence
9. Case ›› Re-branding: Turning A Diving Brand With A Heritage Into A Brand With A Future
10. Why Are The Worlds Greatest Brands Stuck In Old Technology And What Should They Do About It?
11. Lightbulb Packaging. If They Can – You Can Too!
12. The 10 Commandments Of Future Brands
13. Adolf Hitler and his evil eyes
14. 50 movie posters that will bring you back in time
15. The Social Formula For Small Business Owners
16. Future Integrated Communication From A Digital Perspective
17. A short story about love
18. I Think I Can Beat Steve Jobs
19. Social Marketing Simplified
20. Case: The Story Of How Sweden’s Newest Bank ‘Marginalen Bank’ Was Created, Implemented and Launched
21. So What About Volvo? Does Your Site Suck Too?
22. The Ultimate Mood and Storyboard Application
23. Brand and Communication Predictions For 2010 by Johan Ronnestam
24. Poladroid brings back the Polaroid memories
25. 21 Steps on How to Monitor Your Brand Online and Keep Track of the Conversation
26. Dear CEO’s, Board Members and Top Management – what’s more important? Wine or Change?
27. Toys that makes me go wow
28. Why You Should Wait To Use Facebook Email
29. Brand and communication predictions for 2009 by Johan Ronnestam
30. Here’s a logo that can stand time
31. I Just Want To Be Myself
32. How Traditionalists Think About Social Media
33. Mr Shohei Otomo rock my sunday evening
34. Is MobileMe the iTunes killer?
35. Foreign – The End. Ronnestam – The Beginning.
36. How To Successfully Identify A Future Trend
37. Steve Jobs and Apple will replace the Apple TV with a 10” wireless iMedia remote control.
38. Pepsi rebranding features dynamic logo
39. Mitt svar i sin helhet till Tobias Brandel på Svenska Dagbladet
40. Simon Pestridge From Nike Make Future Advertising Sound Simple
41. First Versace, then H&M and now Louis Vuitton ads. Madonna got the fashion giants wrapped around her finger
42. Ask Yourselves These 10 Questions And Then Go Off Conquer The World
43. 10 Reasons Why The Screens Are Coming in 2010
44. Top 5 viral advertising videos on Youtube in 2007
45. Seduce us or excuse us – 11 ways to bring your brand up to date
46. Swedish Television launches a great online television site but where’s the social interaction?
47. Think People Will Read About Your Service? Think Again!
48. Emotional vs rational messages in communication during global recession and Nigel Hollis
49. Luxury champagne brand Krug pops up their brand and shows how entertain the masses with minimum effort
50. Social Media. It’s There To Give Your Brand A Body
51. All Your Brands Are Belong To Us
52. AIDA Transformed By Digital Media. What Does It Mean To Your Brand Communication?
53. Dear The Economist – it’s MY thinking space, not yours!
54. Come On Over and I’ll Print A Lasagna or Pizza For Dinner!
55. Common Sense Communication
56. What Transparency Will Do To Your Brand
57. How to work better by Peter Fischli & David Weiss
58. The checklist that will save our world and maybe your brand too!
59. The Boy Who Lived – How a Comic Strip Can Make You Cry
60. How I Create
61. Let Me Introduce JAJDO – A Swedish App Brand For Kids
62. I Spent The Weekend On An Island And Challenged My Fears
63. Here’s To The Crazy Ones
64. Talar framtidens kommunikation med Göran Adlén och TrendTV nu igen
65. Time Replaces Money.
66. Control Your Home With Your Mobile
67. What Does The New York Times Know That We Don’t?
68. How To Win And Keep A Client
69. I’m a Leo
70. Hand drawn qoutes
71. adidas Techfit launched
72. How To Create A Great Ad For A Beer Brand? Easy! – You Don’t!
73. I’ve Said It Before But It’s Worth Repeating – We Just Wanna Have Fun
74. 2010 Is Coming To An End. Here Are Some Things I Did
75. Life Is Made Up By Small Things That Don’t Seem To Matter
76. How to innovate a album cover using typography
77. Why SAAB, Volvo, Ford, BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Peugeot, AUDI, Chevrolet, Buick and the rest of the car industry should the adopt the iPhone model and develop the InCar OS
78. Google Introduce Live Search and Augmented Reality With Google Goggles
79. Optimal Webbnärvaro – Svar till Elias Betinakis
80. The new Blossa Glögg bottle
81. Here’s a flashmob I wish I’d known about
82. A Brand New Branded Day
83. A great post on car logos
84. Vad var det jag sade – Årets Julklapp 2010 – En läsplatta.
85. On my way home from 6 days on Lanai, Hawaii that changed my life
86. I adore a good wine. I love a great design. When these two collide I’m lost in the explosion
87. When You Want To Communicate Something. Change Perspective!
88. Varsågod. Here are my Netvibes feeds
89. Foreign provided the vows for the marriage between H&M and Viktor and Rolf.
90. What is shopping? What is branding? What is marketing? Who’s the designer?
91. If you wanna get some brand love tomorrow you better get into the conversation today
92. RIP Michael Jackson
93. Göran Adlén intervjuar Johan Ronnestam om framtidens kommunikation i TrendTV
94. Turn Your Business Into A Smarter Social Business
95. I Ffffound my new favourite image search
96. New York Times reinvents online newspaper reading with a new skimmering interface
97. It’s all an illusion
98. A Sustainable Plan And My Point Of View
99. In order to create something timeless you’ve gotta set Megagoals.
100. WWRD – 36 things Ronnestam would do differently if he had control of brand that delivered broadband, telecom and television services

And there we go. The Top 100 posts. Personally I still lack tons of posts in this list. But in order for you to find those – stick to the tag cloud to the right and look for the related posts beneath each and everyone of these posts.

Have a good night! – Johan Ronnestam

We’re four days into 2011 and I’m in Tandådalen, a Swedish ski resort, skiing. Before heading out to rips some snow I thought I’d update the blog with my latest venture. 6 days from now I’m kick-starting my latest company – JAJDO.

Sometime last summer after having seen my two daughters rock the iPad an idea started to take shape inside my head – what If I could make a living doing things my daughters and other kids around the world would love. What If I could make a living doing that while teaching kids things that helped them get through life? I have to do this!

Said and done. I immediately called good friend and ‘out of this world’ developer Andreas Wålm. Seconds into the call Andreas answered – I’m in! Then I thought – “who would be the best designer?” – the first name that came to mind was Jonas Theder, digital design guru, illustrator and also a good friend. We met for lunch a sunny day in Stockholm – Jonas smiled widely and said – I’ll do it! JAJDO was born.

JAJDO will be based in Sweden but will launch apps globally. We’ll aim to create, develop and launch the worlds best teaching games aimed at kids 0-7 years old. We’ll translate and localize em’ for all open app markets in the world. During the year you can follow JAJDO on the JAJDO website or on Twitter.

Except for taking on speaking assignments I’ll focus on building JAJDO during first quarter of 2011. Then from the end of April I’ll start taking on selected branding and communication assignments again.

2011 will be a blast!

Yet another year has almost passed. This one has been filled great things. During the year I’ve created brand concepts, communication strategies and digital brand presences for a number of different brands.

I released my first book or whatever you wanna call it. I spoke about future trends, communication and advertising at more than 80 events in front of approximately 10000 people in Sweden, Finland, Croatia, Estonia and Norway. I met students at Berghs School of Communication. I took part in judging the first ever Social Media award called The Bees Awards. I’ve had the privilege to work with strategy projects for some of our largest brands in Sweden and Europe. I challenged my fears on an island and got awarded in voting’s held by Microsoft Advertising, Yaba Awards and Cision. And last but absolutely not least, I was a proud sponsor of the Geek Girls and a Drag Racing team.

Here are some you might know I did and some you didn’t know I had anything to do with.

Kanal5Play in a new costume is coming to life. I was responsible for the strategy, concept and art direction.

I was very happy to be awarded a TEDx licence, which resulted in the TEDxViggbyholm event where I had about 90 people as my guests back home in Täby. Some of the smartest people I know honored me with their presence as speakers.

Villaägarnas new website, soon to be launched. I worked together with Intellecta on the project. Follow the project here ››

I had the privilege to work out an entire new brand strategy and implement it for Poseidon Diving. Read more about it in my blog post about the project ››

Building a new bank-brand in Sweden and launching it successfully was the biggest challenge of the year.

During the year my concept Dizza Tobak created for SAMBA, a charity movement, to stop younger people from trying smoking was launched. More than 100 schools attended the first competition and they generated about +50000 unique views with attention among non smoking organisations around the world as a result. Now phase 2 is live here ››

In the end of 2010 I created, conceptualized and helped implement a new brand called Specops.

I proudly followed the development over at Rebtel as they continued working with the new site concept I created for them.

Last but not least – I had Göran Adlen and Robin Danehav over for dinner. That resulted in this Swedish interview.

2010 has been a ride and I’ve probably forgot half of it. Now 2011 is closing up on me. New ideas, new ventures and new challenges. Hopefully we can meetup!

(ps. I’m working on my 2011 predictions, hope to post them soon)

What do you do when someone asks you to sign a non disclosure agreement and then asks you to spend the coming year planning, creating, implementing and launching a new Swedish bank?

Say yes of course!

This is where the story of the freshly launched brand Marginalen Bank starts. Together with recidivist Caroline Karlström I found myself 50% giggling like a child about the fact that we had secured the coolest and most complex project I’ve ever worked with while feeling 50% scared to death about the fact that this was that big ass project where you either succeed or you end up in a grave. Well, we did a fairly good job with Poseidon last year so why should this be any different? Little did I know what we had coming.

My main responsibility on the project that follows below has been:

• Head of strategy – Develop the brand platform and the product positioning strategy
• Creative direction – Creating, overseeing and keeping together everything that was produced and communicated in this project from a brand perspective.
• Art direction – Designing visual brand components and overseeing the implementation of these.
• Conceptual copy writing – Developing the brand vision and tonality
• And some design here and there…where needed.

This project could never have been executed without my partner in crime – Caroline Karlström. In Sweden we have a saying “I vått och tort” – boy let me tell you she’s been there for me and everyone involved in this project. Caroline did a lot of the planning including most of the interviews and then managed every little piece of the project…I ran of into the wild and she took care of the tigers.

September 2009 / The challenge – create a brand that stand the tests of time!

Marginalen was founded back 1979 and has since then primarily been a B2B brand with services like debt collection, business administration, legal support and a lot more with offices in Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia and the Netherlands. Since two years back they owned a bank called Bank2 and an online service offering real estate financing. Now, in my hand I held a confidentiality agreement in which I learned that Marginalen were aiming to buy Citibank’s Swedish operation. If Marginalen succeed in taking over the Citibank private bank business Marginalen would have 6 month before every piece of communication going out from former Citibank should be re branded.

This was the challenge from a brand point of view

Ok, what had I just say yes to? We knew the deal with Citibank would be finalized sometime in April 2010. Before then we had to plan and create a strategy that could be executed in two ways depending on if the Citibank deal would go through or not, so back to the question: “Can you work out a brand strategy for Marginalen that tells us how to handle the old brands vs implementing the customer base of Citibank into our business, then create a new brand platform with accompanied visual brand guidelines, implement that platform both off and online and finally develop an advertising strategy and execute that?

One of the biggest challenges was to develop a new design that were to replace the 4 existing brand sites and implement that in only 3.5 months.

In 12 month our task was:

• 4 brands to be brought together as one.
• 4 brand and bank sites to be rebuilt into one.
• Create a new brand and brand platform.
• Implement the new graphical guidelines on everything that communicates the brand.
• Create an advertising platform.
• Launch the god damn thing!

April 2010 / The solution – Let’s build one bank and let’s make sure people get we’re not like other banks.

Following several interviews, meeting with the board, taking the international aspect into play and also the history of Marginalen we decided to build the brand – Marginalen Bank. This meant we’d scrap the two existing brands Bank2 and LånEtt. The main reason for going with one brand instead of three or two for was quite simple. We felt that building three separate brands would require far to much money and an even bigger problem was that it would require a very complex restructuring of the product portfolio and the organization that kept that portfolio intact.

On our way to the final solution we opened a lot of doors in order to get a feel for the brands. These are just some of them

Sometime in June this year the project was getting ready to explode. Until then me and Caroline had handled both the strategic and the conceptual part of the project. This is how I usually work. Go in, work out a strategy using the NEW process that I’ve developed over the years with among others good friend Per Robert Öhlin.

The three main stages of the N.E.W brand model

Prototyping carried us forward

As the strategy unfolds I tend to visualize it. And the aim with the visualization is to bring it close to final design and usually even a little bit further. I call this prototyping and I usually do that in the emotionalize phase. Prototyping means we can visualize the new or changed brand without taking realism into account. It’s better for me, but It’s even better for the client as their organization easier can let ideas through knowing it’s only a prototype. This technique has been used by the car industry for ages, but also brands like Apple has together with IDEO used prototyping to push things forward.

Once the conceptual design and the prototype has been developed it’s time to choose what and how to implement it. When we got to this stage in this project me and Caroline started to build a virtual communication house. Basically we established a virtual production house that could do what most large Swedish agencies could do…and a little bit more.

A virtual communication house

We had since some time back met with potential agencies and production houses. After bringing Marginalen Bank into the decision process we finally brought the following freelancers and agencies in to work with us: Per Robert Öhlin – Lead Copywriter, Visual ID led by Steve McDonald – graphical design, Nansen – web, Per Torberger – web copy, Hey People – print and banner production, Bizkit – media agency, Anders Freij - 3D/TVC production house and Andreas Westin – Illustrations. Once the virtual organization was set up me and Caroline led the team from both a creative and management perspective.

Very few of the logos we created during the free brainstorming process in order to find the future logo of Marginalen Bank

July 2010 / We’ve got a name and it’s Marginalen Bank

Stop. It’s a new logo!

Following many hours of bouncing logos back and fourth we finally had a first choice. This clean beauty (screen shot straight from the graphical guidelines showcasing how to place it) was a mix of the fonts Dessau Pro and Chalet from my favorite font maker House Industries with a lot of small adjustments. After I’d set this one on paper Steve from Visual ID fine tuned it and we had a winner.

No. The blue stripes are not supposed to be there

The result is a great logo that can stand the test of time. It also draws your eyes to the fact that this is a bank. Something that we believe is extremely good since bank safe and safe means people get ready to listen.

Creating and implementing the new graphical guidelines

Early in the process we introduced a gradient that became a clear brand marker. Something that we could dress different things in and thereby create strong recognition while keeping it flexible, timeless and modern.

My goal has been to give every piece of communication a unique touch. Among other things we decided to go for white credit cards. It took some investigation before we finally ended up with a pigment that actually withstands dirt. But the final classic credit card is a beauty!

We’ve so far launched a traveller and a gold card as a complement to the white classic card.

Signage was of course part of the job. This is one of many different versions.

Business cards coming to life

Examples of how to treat photography

Several potential versions of the future website was developed before we finally decided on the design below

When the final designs were approved. We met with several web agencies and finally brought in Nansen as our production house. Right now we’ve focused on getting the site up. Next is changing how it works and why.

Some examples from the first photo shoot we did for Marginalen Bank this summer together with Bsmart.

August 2010 / The advertising strategy

Ok. How do you advertise a brand new bank? Try it yourselves. Say bank and await the reaction. Making people understand that Marginalen Bank is not like any other bank would require quite a lot of money and especially tons of guts. Luckily this was something that this company had. The owners of the company and the board early understood that we had to focus on building the brand. Marginalen Bank was in it for the long run so our advertising had to support that!

October 2010 The TV commercials

When this blog post goes live there’s only one TVC that can be seen on television. However it’s one of many to come and I believe we’ve really found a format that breaks through the noise. We’ve created a concept that rely on artful executions. This first TVC, written by me and Per Robert Öhlin has been produced by Anders Freij and illustrated by Andreas Westin. Andreas has hand drawn each and every scene in ink and then colored it with watercolors.

One of the first colorings of the family by Andreas Westin

It’s then been cut out and brought into 3D where Anders and his crew has hand-animated each and every frame to give the commercial a hand crafted touch to it. It’s been a time consuming process that never could have been executed with a regular production company as it would have cost way to much. Finally we’ve worked out the music together with Erik Häusler who has done a tremendous job composing a unique piece that will be used over time to create recognition and identification with the format and Marginalen Bank.

An early rough drawing from the storyboard compared to one of the final frames

When combining hand drawn illustrations with 3D you end up with a time consuming process. However, the results is a format that stands out from regular hand animated short films and 3D renderings as well. The advantages is that we’re able to set light and movements in 3D and speed up the production process. The 35 second short film we’ve created for this first TVC was written, illustrated, painted and produced in 3D just under 5 weeks. Hand animating a piece like this would take up to 3 months. This enabled us to stick to this artistic format while working against the ‘sick’ time frame.

Building a brand with commercials like this leads to a much stronger brand over time, compared to if we would go straight for tactical advertising. However, we have to do just that, build it over time, which means we’ll follow up with new commercials, made in new artful techniques in order to broaden the scope and earn a sweet little spot inside the hearts of people. Personally I’m very pleased with the results. This TVC will do the job and start building the attention we want for the new Marginalen Brand. But it’s when we’ve broadcasted many more that the brand position will truly be established.

The print advertising

For this first campaign we’re kicking of with extremely simple print ads. We have maximum focus on establishing the tone of voice while slowly getting people used to how our brand look. We’ve kicked of with a manifesto. This one will only run two times and it’s targeted both internally and externally. We need to get that position out there.

Making people understand where we’re heading

As you will see in the papers we seem to be running quite tactical ads. This however is a strategy where I felt it was extremely important to show parts of our product portfolio to make people see that Marginalen Bank is not just any small bank. Marginalen Bank already has a great deal of products and services. This is important to communicate. And that’s why the ads look the way the do. Over time we’ll integrate them tighter with the TVCs.

3 examples of ads showcasing savings accounts, bank cards and loans.

So there we are. It feels pretty darn nice to have gotten this baby elephant out of the zoo. And I’m looking forward to keep you updated on the progress. We’re right now finalizing the implementation of the brand in house. We’ve also started do create TVC nr 2 and a print and outdoor campaign that will be more closely connected to the TVC.

This is the start. But now, when we’ve managed to get this brand kickstarted it’s time to expand on all levels. But that’s another story.

Now / Moving on from here

This is how I work. Strategy, concepts, creativity and helping my clients to establish virtual organizations so that I can move on to the next brand that want’s to solve problems. I wish that I could finish this post of with a twist but…it’s just to much and I really wanna push publish on this one cause it’s time to build some brands.

Gotta run!

Yesterday I got back from a fantastic weekend spent on the island of Tjärö, Sweden. Together with another 400 people I took part in something called the Sweden Social Web Camp (SSWC 2010).

This morning Swedish TV channel TV4 broadcasted a report made by Lisah Pettersson aka @JournalistLisah featuring a short comment by me.

Thanks Dr Spinn for guiding me towards this clip

Part from sharing knowledge the SSWC is also about party. And late the first night I found myself in the bar with my good friend Mattias Östmar. We both spoke about what makes you change things in your life and how you can make that happen. As we chatted away I mention I’d always wanted to jump of a high cliff into water. I’ve never had a problem dropping down a cliff with skis or snowboard but landing in water has always scared me. Seconds later we posted an announcement on a wall saying “Jump the cliff of death at 5 pm tomorrow – join us” and then signed it with our names.

This is how you accomplish your goals. Not only store them in a private room inside your brain. Tell people about what you wanna accomplish and make sure to set a date. Otherwise you’ll end up dying with a brain full of shit. Cause trust me, dreams do rot!

As the evening closed in 5 people had signed up to jump. Something stopped two of them from coming but a forth guy turned up in the last minute. Heidi Harman led us in the right direction. Then I followed. Mattias Östmar not far behind and finally Tobias Basilius left the cliff last. What a kick!

Martin Källström, CEO of Twingly held the camera and Robin Danehav brought the ‘pair of scissors’

Whatever you do in 2011. Make sure you join us on Tjärö, cause if nothing out of the ordinary happens I trust Thomas Wennström and Kristin Heinonen will arrange yet another killer conference.

För nästan precis ett år sedan blev jag intervjuad av Göran Adlén, god vän och populär föreläsare. Ämnet då var digitala och sociala medier och hur framtiden såg ut. Sedan dess har jag varit ständig (nästan alla fall) gäst i TrendTV och fått friheten att uttala mig och lite vad jag vill.

Nu var det dags igen. Förra veckan när fröken Sol bjöd på ett strålande humör bjöd jag över Göran och TrendTV’s producent, filmare och editör Robin Danehav tillika uppskattad personlig samarbetspartner på grillkväll hemma i Täby. När vi smörjt kråset och dukat av bordet var det så dags att till viss dela svara upp mot förra årets sägningar samt dela med mig av mina tankar om framtiden.

Här har du 33 minuter samtal mellan Johan Ronnestam och Göran Adlén om framtidens kommunikation:

(For you English readers. Sorry, this is only available in Swedish. But feel free to come by for an interview of your own)

Missade du förra årets intervju så har du den här.