communication

Have a look at the video below and tell me if you’re not amazed. Turning things up side down. Black becomes white. Faster when you’re used to going slow. Smile when people expect you to be sad. Something big when people expected something small. Diving when people expected skydiving. Whatever you do, don’t do what others have done before you.

Guillaume Nery filmed on breath hold by Julie Gautier sure knows how to change perspective.

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I am pretty darn proud to announce that I’ve been picked as a member on the jury of the first international social media award show for communication and marketing professionals. The award show called The Bees Award will be held in San Francisco on November 9 later this year and it’s open for submissions as of today.

The Bees Award have gathered some of the leading social media experts from around the world to judge this award and I’m honored to be included in that list. Apart from the honor it’s also a great opportunity for me to scan some of the best case studies in the world when it comes to social media. I’m sure once the 9th of november has passed I’ll be packed with inspiration to share with you guys.

This new buzzing contest will award winners in the following categories:

  • Best 140 Characters (SMS, Tweet)
  • Best Use of a Micro-Blogging Platform
  • Best Use of a Social Media Platform
  • Best Use of mobile
  • Best Relationship With Bloggers
  • Best Conversation with Customers
  • Best Use of Alternative Tool(s)
  • Best Use of Media Press Room
  • Best Writing
  • Best Art Direction
  • Best Social CRM
  • Best Student Work
  • Best Innovation
  • Best Campaign
  • Agency of the Year
  • Client of the Year

And besides me, here’s the jury and their twitter accounts and blogs:

So, what the heck are you waiting for. Make sure me and the other jury members eyeball your social ideas!

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Eyes open. My hands reach for my iPhone. Damn! The Night Stand app tells me it’s only 5:15 AM and I’m already awake.

Ever since I was a little kid I’ve been waking up early. As the brain slowly comes to life I’m performing my morning routine on my iPhone. First a quick check on my mails to see if something happened. I don’t like walking of to the shower wondering if there’s something I should have attended to. Echofon quickly brings me up to date on Twitter and potential mentions or messages. Sweet, @MIACOTH and @pellewiman has pushed some traffic my way. It brings a smile to my face. I head into the Facebook app to see what’s up the. As usual most friends are asleep at this time. Even Joakim who usually is my partner in crime when it comes to waking up early. Jerry on the other hand just got to bed while listening to Spotify. I pay a visit to my Mint statistics account to get an idea whats been go. A couple of hundred visitors have passed by my blog during the night. About 60 of them unique, that’s an honor. As the day passes another eight hundred people will come by if things are normal.

Hmm, my tapping on the iPad keyboard wakes my two and a half year old daughter up. Dressed in that sweet Pippi Longstockings night gown she goes “Dad, I wanna paint on the pad” She says. Not now darling, go back to sleep! It’s 5:45AM. Doesn’t work. I hand her the iPhone and she [click to continue…]

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There are no secret formulas, no secret recipes or magic potions when it comes to social media marketing. All you’ve gotta do is take in one single fact: People have moved lots of their behaviors online and you’ve gotta follow.

To succeed in moving your business, communication and advertising into the digital world, ask yourselves the following questions:

  1. If people search for things related to my business via Google - how can I make sure they find me?
  2. We’ve used to organize events in the real world - where can we organize events in the digital world?
  3. When people started to use phones you gave your sales people phones - why are you not giving them Skype, MSN, Twitter, Facebook and live streaming accounts?
  4. You would never automate a personal relation that could lead to sales - why are you automatic every single sales process online?
  5. People don’t listen to brands, they listen to other people - how can we make sure other people say good things about us?
  6. Since people tend to spend their time alone behind the screen - how can we continue to build human digital relations using video, photos and copy?
  7. In the real world you do PR towards paid media – how can you shift your PR activities to be picked up by earned media online?
  8. Traditionally you’ve spent lots of money on media - how can you shift focus to spending lots of money on value that leads to eyeballs online?
  9. In the offline world you would value how people navigate in your store - how much do you value how people navigate in your online world?
  10. Building a great house requires an well paid architect – why then are you hiring the cheapest architect when building a great online presence?
  11. In the old world comparing products was hard - does your products stand the future transparency were everything can be compared?
  12. Back then you could create a 3 year marketing plan – what can you do to turn it into a 3 month marketing plan?
  13. Focus groups used to lead you right - is your organization prepared to listen to real time data instead?
  14. Building brands took years and years - how can you build your brand in months?
  15. Competitors introduced themselves at the next fair - are you prepared for the ones who wont introduce themselves at all and don’t care about the old way of doing business, only your old customers?
  16. You used to write business plans - how can you get moving and learn on the way.

If you’ve got 15 right answers then you’re fine. If not – start running!

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Days before 2009 ended I announced the release of my first book or whatever you wanna call it. As I did so I tweeted that the first 50 people who would retweet the message would be sent a free signed copy [click to continue…]

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This last year, 2009 has been a blast in many ways. Almost every day I’ve received interesting news from friends, other bloggers and my RSS feeds. Even thought we’ve seen one of the most severe economical downturns this year it seems advertising, communication and technology has been the business to be in.

Brands seem to have learned from the history and brand spend has rather gone up than down for a lot of brands. We’ve also seen Twitter and Facebook continue to grown faster than anything else on the planet and social media and open technologies has prospered due to that fact. The iPhone has continued to grow and Android is picking up it’s pace. Google has released lots of new cool products even though the Wave didn’t really become the clean double over head a lot of us expected.

Most brands have been looking for one-offs and as I look back at the 2009 Cannes Lions winners it strikes me that I can’t really remember one single campaign that stood out and changed the world of advertising. We’re slowly moving away from bought space to earned space, this is most certainly the reason why my brain plays these tricks with me.

I’m not gonna spend more of this post summing up 2009. Other people, papers, bloggers and personalities has done a great job doing this already. Instead let’s move on to 2010.

Click for a larger image

Here are the Brand and communication predictions for 2010 by Johan Ronnestam

REAL

This is more of a change in how we live, consume, work, advertise and communicate. We will of course use all technology available to become more real but we will strive to make things more realistic, true [click to continue…]

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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.

top-10-blog-post-branding-book-ronnestam

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)

Here’s the PDF if you wanna download it and read it off your [click to continue…]

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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.

dinosaurs-of-brand-marketing

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…]

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Students get it. When will brands do?

May 25, 2009

This year when the students at Berghs School of Communication graduate they sum up their examination exhibition like this: No one reads ads. People read what is interesting. How do we become interesting? We create news instead of advertising. Instead of having a regular examination exhibition they’ve launching a live news channel the 27th of [...]

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In a rational way I should be blogging right now

April 28, 2009

I found myself thinking. I need to write a blog post. After some browsing, thinking and searching I came to the conclusion. I don’t feel like writing a blog post right now. Not because I don’t know what to write about. But because I’m not inspired. I may find new energy tomorrow morning. I may [...]

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The power of yes

April 21, 2009

Decisions is what life is about therefor decision is what communication is about. Yes. No. Maybe. Look at these three words above. Yes will move you forward. Everything you say yes to will inevitable lead to some sort of learning and ultimately to your goal. No will stop you in your tracks. But as long [...]

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Sharing some of my thoughts on viral marketing – The Viral Triangle

February 4, 2009

Just say the word – Viral – and brand owners go bananas. It’s what you want. Communication spread all over the world without a penny in media spend. It sounds so easy but in fact, not that many videos circles the globe every year. Let me share one of my ways of increase the probability [...]

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