Last summer I got on a train leaving Stockholm for Gothenburg. Together with freelancing project manager, planner and colleague Caroline Karlström I had a meeting set up with diving brand Poseidon. This was the start of a project where I truly had the opportunity to work with all aspects of branding and creative communication.
A dream project.
Ingvar Elfström, the founder of Poseidon back in 1958.
The Background
Back in 1958 this brand was founded by a young Swedish diver, Ingvar Elfström. Since then the brand has become famous for unique, different and great products. However over the last couple of years they’ve lost speed when it comes to innovation and marketing initiatives.
But then something happened. The company was bought by a small group of investors three years back. Headed by visionaire Kurt Sjöblom they set out on a journey – to develop the first ever automated rebreather for recreational divers.
This was why we were there. About a year from launch Kurt and his team felt they needed to do something about the brand. And after a successful meeting that actually started with me diving [click to continue…]
Later this day the river was flooding food from the main land. The sharks ended up chasing me to the beach
That is me up there. About to cut back into the white water and sitting on the right, after surf. Below shows me right after dropping in on Uluwatu, one of the worlds finest left handers.
The other day I was backing up some old paper prints and these two shots got me thinking.
This was taken one of the first days surfing Uluwatu. I forgot my rash guard in our bungalow and got sunburned bad
The photos are taken some time back in 1990 when I first visited Bali. I had the greatest time and hooked up with guys like Kelly Slater and Rob Machado that I’ve learned to know via snowboarding buddies.
At this time Internet wasn’t anything I was thinking about. It didn’t exist, at least not in my mind. I had a mobile but bringing it to Bali was out of the question. You called back home every 14 days to say you were ok. People didn’t expect you to communicate more often than that if you were on the other side of the globe. A postcard did just fine!
These were days that defined my life. Internet just came along and swept me of my feets.
The music industry have for many years kept musicians at an arms length mainly because the hard- and software has been to expensive for the everyday musician to buy. On top of that the record companies has owned distribution and marketing. This way they’ve made sure that they make the big bucks while the actual artists get screwed over and over again. Now thanks to affordable laptops with software that doesn’t cost anything compared to a traditional studio production has been democratized and the internet makes marketing easy. Today a 18 year old kid walks into a record company with a final version of his song. The power has shifted over to his side and as a result the music labels are left with their pants down.
Now it’s time for the movie industry to follow.
Good friend Caroline mailed me a link to a new surf movie that is in production on Hawaii at the moment. Being a surfer myself I was of course first stunned by Jamie O’Brien handling Pipeline as if it was nothing. However, the quality of the footage amazed me even more. My first thought was that this was a big ass Hollywood production but as I was browsing through the shots I learned that this was the brain works of the next generation studio Laforet Visuals.
Laforet Visuals is run by tech geek Vincent Laforet, recognized as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Photography” by American Photo Magazine in 2005 and among other things awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2002.
By using a combination of the RED One, the Canon 5DMKII and radio controlled helicopters the studio shows Hollywood quality doesn’t have anything to do with big ass budgets anymore. Of course Laforet Visuals have spent more than most every day photographers, but still, the price tag in the end shows that if you have an idea you can actually pull it through. Only 2-3 years ago a production like this would cost 1000 times the money.
The Canon Mark 5 with a Redrock cinema lens – Hollywood democratized
The final results are yet to see as Vincent hasn’t published a final version of the movie. But one thing is for sure. When I see this I know that the next business that will have young creatives challenging the establishment will be the movie business.
(by the way, I can’t wait to get my hands on one of those RED One cameras)
Linus Omark, the 6th most viewed video on YouTube this week.
The 6th most viewed video worldwide on YouTube this week is a video showing Swedish hockey player Linus Omark, drafted 4th by the Edmonton Oilers, scoring in a friendly exhibition game against Switzerland.
Linus does what every innovator would do – he dares to do different.
And differentiation is what earns him fame.
If you’re into advertising, marketing or any kind of business for that sake you have so much to learn from this. Hell, if you’re looking to achieve anything there’s everything to learn.
In the end of the 80s I was privileged to be taken on as a member of the Swedish national snowboarding team. That’s when I first realized what differentiated the people who made the it in life and people who didn’t – the people in the team didn’t care what people thought of us, we did our own thing no matter what. I especially remember a snowboarding camp in Valfjället, a small ski resort (hill) in Värmland, Sweden. About 70-80 teens had gathered for a half pipe camp arranged by Greger Hagelin who later founded WE.
Me, years later piloting Greger Hagelin and WE co-founder David Hedman for a trip in a Piper PA-28 to Gotland.
It rained every day, yet early every morning before the lifts opened up a small group of us started to hike the pipe. Then once the lifts closed down that same group still hiked the pipe, the rain still poring down. Not much of a winter experience but for us it was all about passion. In that group we were all part of the national team or soon to be. The others practiced for an hour or two before getting pissed about the weather and leaving for the warm cabins. Once we got in later in the night we were told how stupid we were for staying out there all day soaking wet. We didn’t care.
If you wanna achieve something big. If you want your advertising or marketing activities to reach further. You’ve gotta do things differently and also be prepared to make a fool out of yourself. Don’t care what people will say if you fail. Get up and try again. Do your own thing.
So, when Linus, currently playing for Lulea HF, gets out on that ice and decides to try something he’s been practicing for hours, hours and more hours he feels sure of himself. He will win. However if he would have missed I’m sure he would have tried again.
Are you prepared to stick your nose out? Or do you play it safe?
Me interacting with Mr Dolphin, his friends and family.
I have spent the last 6 days on Lanai, Hawaii together with a good friend. We’ve been down here attending Tibco’s yearly conference. He as an employee and me as a guest. The optimum setup for me as I’ve focused more on exploring the island than business.
Apart from getting to know Vivek Ranadivé, Tibco founder and technology innovator, and learning about his thoughts on the future I also got the chance to chat quite a lot with Roger Craig, who (who by the way also blogs) considered one of the worlds best American football players. Roger is working with marketing at Tibco (smart move) and we found common grounds. There is so much to learn from people like this. If you ever meet one of them, don’t stay on the bench. Get up and interact.
My best appointment however was meeting Mr Dolphin with friends and family. Every day we headed down to the ocean to snorkel with these guys. I’ve been diving and surfing with dolphins before. Back in the 80s and early 90s when I was snowboarding professionally I traveled every year to Ireland to surf and sometimes we ended up surfing with these wonderful animals. But the last couple of days on Lanai has been crazy. I got my camera out [click to continue…]
For quite some time now I’ve been thinking about serving you all my favorite style tip. Don’t know why I haven’t taken the time but here we go.
There’s a blog out there called the Sartorialist. What began as a way for Scott Schuman to share photos of people that he saw on the streets of New York that he thought looked great ended up being one of the worlds most influential style spotters.
The concept of the Sartorialist is simple yet genius. Basically it’s about spotting everyday people that look stunning, take their picture and publish it on the blog. And the concept has turned out to be a success. The Sartorialist has been featured in Vogue, Velvet, Style, and Esquire. Since some time back the blog has even earned Scott a monthly page in GQ. Last year his blog was also selected by Time Magazine as one of the worlds Top 100 design influencers.
Wow – that’s what a blog can do for you!
So, if you’re looking to shape up, follow the latest trends of simply eye some nice looking people. Put that rss from the Sartorialist into your reader. You won’t regret it (although your wallet might)
If you’re looking to have more than 300000 download a little application of yours. What do you do? Easy. You create a desktop application that allows people to drop their Jpegs onto a little Polaroid camera hovering on your desktop. Then you let people, just like in the old days, wait for the actual photo to be developed. Once ready its a 400dpi “polaroid” photo that can be printed or uploaded automatically to your Flickr account.
Paul Ladroid (can it really be this good) is the man behind this simple yet genius idea.
And the stats are impressive. In just 4 weeks the site have had 390000 unique visitors, more than 340000 downloads of the software (and it’s only available so far for Mac) and 250000 incoming links.
This is exactly what creativity is all about. Something old + Something new = Innovation + Success.
Läser idag på Slashdot om ett fantastiskt initiativ från tyska staten. Man har bestämt sig för att donera 100 000 bilder till tyska Wikipedia under det tyska Creative Commons “Attribution-Share Alike 3.0” avtalet. Bilderna sträcker sig från 1860 till nutid. Tydligen är det här bara början. Målet är att dela ut över 11 miljoner bilder!
Det här är otroligt bra gjort och det är bara för Svenska staten att öppna upp arkiven. Ut med ljud, bilder och filmer. Finns ingen anledning att sitta och hålla på det. När ni ändå håller på, dela ut bilderna på Flickr och filmerna på YouTube.
Förresten. Vilken information sitter ditt företag på som passar bättre på nätet än i en gammal bildbank stängd för omvärlden?
A couple of days ago I spotted this TVC above. It made me happy. Simple & informative yet a fun movie that left a positive feeling right behind my nipples. I instantly started to browse the net to get hold of the movie and blog about it. I was kinda sad when I couldn’t find [...]
Nature. What a thing huh. Found this wonderful image of The Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) curiosly swimming around Brian Skerry armed with his camera. And yes. The name of the Whale is actually The Right Whale. National Geographic got the full story.
When it comes to whales, the usual photo is a tail whipping through the sea. This immediately stands [...]
Let me make this clear from the beginning. It’s not the product that made me write about the shopping experience. But, I’ll admit that I found the shopping experience because of the product.
I’m a fan of usability. What doesn’t work…doesn’t work. However, I’m also a fan of dramatization and communication. This site by Agent Provocateur [...]
It’s Saturday and I’m in front of the computer, working and watching Tennis on SVT Live Play. On top of that I’m reading some blogs in my Netvibes account. Found a nice little article on Wired that is worth taking a look at.
ronnestam.com was voted Sweden’s first blog on Innovation, future trends and digital communication. It’s written by Johan Ronnestam. He's widely regarded as one of Sweden’s leading speakers and authorities in the field of modern creative and conceptual thinking and skill of innovating brands and their communication.
