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…]
I’ve always wanted to write a book. This is NOT it!
So far this year my blog have had more than 115 000 unique visitors and just over 240 000 visits. I’ve written more than 500 blog posts covering everything from design, gadgets, trends, technology, advertising, innovations, personal things, branding and more.
About 28% of the visitors during this last year have ended up reading a post that was tagged with branding. That’s probably not a coincidence since besides trends and creativity I’d say branding is the subject that is the most dearest to me.
When I’ve been looking deeper down into the stats I’ve seen that many of you visitors haven’t really explored my blog beyond the posts on the first page or the actual post you came to read. This is why I thought it made sense to gather them all like this – ‘Top 10 Blog Posts on Future Branding and Communication From Ronnestam.com’- My first book.
A Book, MashUp, PDF or Whatever You Wanna Call It By Johan Ronnestam
Even though this isn’t actually what I would call a book it’s been the perfect opportunity for me to experiment with the production process of a book. I’ve put a big block in my calendar covering January, February and March and if everything goes right I will present my ‘real’book sometime in April or May next year. It will be a book on how to integrate future communication with product and service development. One things for sure – I’m doing it on my own. But for now you have to do with this first book, mashup, pdf or whatever you wanna call it.
4 Ways to get your hands on Top 10 Blog Posts on Future Branding and Communication From Ronnestam.com With Love
1. Buy a signed copy of the printed book – 39€ including shipping world wide.
I’ve printed 150 books in Denmark at Norhaven. Out of those 150 I’m giving 50 signed copies away to the first 50 Twitter retweets of this post (if you live outside Sweden you have to pay for the shipping). If you wanna get your hand on one of the other 100 signed ones you either hope to get one at one of my speaking occasions during 2010 or you contact me to buy one for €39 including shipping costs.
2. Download the PDF for free (pay by linking or tweeting this blog post)
Today Miss Swiss miss made me notice this wonderful initiative from Volkswagen called ‘The Fun Theory’. It’s one of the more refreshing campaigns I’ve seen coming out of Sweden in the last 10 years. This is good shit and to me it’s spot on brand! Or what do you think?
Last week I was contacted by Superbrands. The company that releases a book with the same name. I was asked to write a post on their blog about Branding. I know I’ve got some followers interested in that subject so I’ve decided to post the same article here too.
Back in 2000 a flash based message containing the phrase ‘All your base are belong to us’ spread like wildfire through emails and internet forums. Back then most of you had probably not heard about viral marketing, web 2.0 and social networks. Facebook and Twitter were still 6 years away from being established and most brands didn’t bother to much about digital marketing.
About the same time Nike took their first stumbling steps towards a digital brand strategy. Back then Nike would probably not know that their global strategy would be [click to continue…]
This post is probably most stupid post one can write since CEO’s and board members seems to have decided to stay behind with the dinosaurs while the rest of us look for new ground where we can thrive and prosper. Basically on average they read three local newspapers of their own choice, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and watch a couple of TV channels. They haven’t got a clue about blogs, feed readers and social networks. But I’ll give it a go anyway.
Dear CEO and board member. In most cases you’re probably +40 years old. You have a wife, two kids and live in a house that cost above average. Two cars in the garage and a [click to continue…]
And now to a very sensitive issue – monitoring. As some of you know my profession is leading brands into the future of communication. One of the more important parts of this is teaching them how to keep track of their own brands in the jungle of conversation. What are people saying about my brand, where does the conversation take place and how can we respond to it – simple questions really.
However, quite many brands don’t have a clue on how to do this or even worse – they haven’t even started to think about tracking conversations related to their brands.
When I speak about this we often end up talking about me and how I track my own brand. I try to keep track of every conversation out there that in one way or another has my name or brand in it. As often as I can I also listen to, respond or in other ways take the conversation into account – just as any brand should.
One of my Netvibes dashboards that I use to monitor Ronnestam online
Since sharing is caring – here is how to track keywords online on a daily basis without paying for it. NOTE – this doesn’t give you a 100% guarantee and the more generic your brand is the harder it is to monitor it, then professional help might be your solution. It also applies better to smaller brands rather than large ones. But you will gain some [click to continue…]
We’re fed up with boring old school advertising. We don’t want your information and rational explanations. We wanna dance, laugh, feel and love. We do not want be treated like idiots!
James Dean knew how to seduce people while looking pretty darn boring. But face it. He’s dead and would be pretty out of date now!
Information is all over us. We’re accessing it everywhere faster than ever. The more shit we get our hands on the less we wanna mess with, so you’ve gotta stand out.
Future brands don’t buy media they create brand dramas that build value and generate SEO equity – only then will you reach your future friends (aka. target group). Future brands tell stories.Future brands rely on drama and constant innovation – totally integrated.
Brands all over the world – Google, IBM, Nike, BMW, Porsche, Starbucks, Coca Cola & Levi Straus, they all say the think about sustainability. What about your brand?
Sustainability is a beautiful word, especially in terms of how it affects brands. The true meaning of it is ‘the capacity to endure’ and that’s more or less [...]
The other day I spotted this video showcasing i-TAG augmented reality toys. It’s the result of a cooperation between toy manufacturer Mattel and James Cameron in order to support the launch of the motion picture Avatar coming in fall 2009.
These next generation trading cards comes with a 3-D Web tag, called an i-TAG, a technology [...]
I play golf. I enjoy watching golf tournaments. I’m spending the summer in the lovely Swedish archipelago….without any coverage of the British Open…so I turn to the iPhone app store.
There it is. The second big golf tournament iPhone application in a month. US open lead the way with their application. If you’re into sailing you [...]
I often meet people or brands saying everything has been done and there’s no room for innovation in their bransch.
Never, no, not in a million years! There is always room for product innovation.
Sometimes all it takes is looking at your business from a different perspective. What the iPhone has done to the mobile business is [...]
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.
