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 with this new product we had ourselves a new client. The mission. To re-brand Poseidon and bring their marketing strategies into the 22 century. The full guacamole!

The Problem:
Poseidon has since long been loved by advanced divers. People who know how to dive love Poseidon. As a result of this the brand has slowly been turned into a brand by extreme divers for extreme divers. How copy was written, photos were styled and packaging looked was all steered towards a small part of the diving world that in the long run wouldn’t build a broad user base for Poseidon.

A typical photo before we started evaluating how Poseidon should be communicated

As Poseidon now develop new and groundbreaking products and target the recreational divers, the tourist that may bring his own gear on his vacation but might just as well rent the stuff, a new position is essential.

The old start page of Poseidon.com before we started the re-branding journey

Finally Poseidon is a global brand. With a presence on 28 different markets we also, from a visual and tone of voice point of view had to turn the brand into a global one that not only matched it’s competitors but beat the hell out of them.

So there we were. Now it was time to rebuild this brand.

The Solution – What was our mission and what was the result?

Our task was to create a cross-functional and multi-dimensional definition of the Poseidon brand. Once that was done we set out to design and dramatize a differentiated brand experiences across the entire value chain and customer journey.

My parts in the project included working with the overall strategy together with Caroline and then develop a fully integrated creative direction that I later art directed. Once I had designed most parts of the project we brought in designers Kristian Packalen and Esa Tanttu whom I had been working with before to finalize my visions. Early in the process we also brought in copywriter Judy Olsen to clean parts of my conceptual copy but above all write all the copy for the new Poseidon website.

The re-branding of Poseidon Diving has included:

• Create an over all brand strategy that would steer all communication initiatives.
• Develop an integrated visual platform for a marketing components
• Typography
• Point of sale
• Packaging concepts
• Photography
• Website design and strategy
• Offline advertising
• Online advertising
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Event concepts
• Copy platform

After about 6 month of strategy, creative and art direction, design, photography, copy writing, 3D modeling, website design and production we’re now closer than ever to accomplish our mission -  ‘create a cross-functional and multi-dimensional definition of the brand’. This is parts of the visual result:

A selection of the units I’ve created for Poseidon, The visual system is clearly visible.

The Poseidon Brand Manifesto

Once we settled on a strategy (not to be communicated here) one of the first thing I did was writing the Poseidon manifesto. When I’m hired to create a new positioning for a brand I think it’s essential to put words to my thinking. This way both me and everyone else involved, both on the consulting side as well as the client side, will stand on a common ground. Once this manifesto was approved we brought in copywriter Judy Olsen to clean it up. This resulted in the following:

The Perfect Photographer For The Poseidon Brand Campaign – Wayne Levin

What we needed from day one was something that made people understand Poseidon is a new brand. Traditionally Poseidon has been all about hard core diving. Basically the military look above has been spot on. But now Poseidon is to be positioned towards a broader audience. We needed photography that clearly communicates the Poseidon brand.

We searched all over for something that could differentiate Poseidon from it’s competitors. Something that inspired people and engaged them emotionally. Something that made people dream about diving. On top of that I also thought it was of great importance to find a photographer who also cared for the ocean and represented sustainability. Basically something that expressed the heart of Poseidon’s philosophy.

I found Wayne Levin. Some of you might recognize the black and white style from the photos I took myself last year on Hawaii. Now you understand that those were of course inspired from the master himself. Wayne Levin is interested not only in seascapes and animals, but in the ocean itself: the texture, movement and volume of the water. It is this visceral sense of power– of how it feels to be right there within the vastness of the ocean – that accords perfectly with Poseidon’s dedication to a pure, unrestricted diving experience.

So far Wayne has shot a limited series of photos for Poseidon. The purpose is to continue the collaboration with Wayne and shoot a series of videos too. Nothing can be more inspiring than to follow Wayne diving with the Poseidon Discovery taking pictures of some of the most inspiring animals on earth.

This photograph was taken at Ho’okena Beach in South Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. The Spinner Dolphins often come into Ho’okena, and many other Kona Beaches and Bays in order to rest in shallow waters during the day after a night of hunting in the deep waters several miles off the coast. Ho’okena is a beautiful bay with very interesting sand formations caused by the waves and currents in the bay.

This photograph was taken off Mahukona in North Kohala on the Island of Hawaii. Wayne scuba dove at this location with a friend, and was very surprised to find this young female Monk Seal. The Hawaiian Monk Seal is extremely endangered so he felt very fortunate to have this encounter. Actually she was anything but shy constantly approaching Wayne very close.

The photo of the Spinner Dolphins used in a full spread print ad.

Creating posters from a photo taken about three miles off the Kohala Coast near the North tip of the Island of Hawaii. The Mellon Head Whales are quite rare to find in Hawaii, and this was Waynes only encounter with them. He was on a boat, looking to photograph Humpback Whales when he spotted what he thought were dolphins near the Humpbacks. When Wayne approached them he realized that these were either Melon Heads or False Killer Whales. There were at least 200 individuals but when he entered the water he could see that the large pod was broken up into groups of about 20 individuals.

Turning packaging into something emotionally engaging

Already from the start my point of view was to develop a visual system that engaged people in every part of the customer journey. The of course included the packaging of the products. As a result of this we planned to use Wayne Levin’s wonderful photography on the packaging too. Along with the Brand Manifesto and the new product photography we’ve created a strong link from the advertising, the website, the point of sale material all the way to the actual product that you bring home.

On top of serving as packaging this concept also works as point of sale displays when used empty.

Wayne Levin’s photos along with the Poseidon brand manifesto creates a great platform for the packaging too.

Making sure the Poseidon brand stays strong in point of sale environments.

Having worked with advertising for quite many years now my belief is that no matter how strong your advertising is, how smart your website communicates your brand and how great your products are it’s all about the physical environments. Once you enter the store actual sale is about in-store presence. Even though Poseidon is a small brand compared to some of it’s competitors we’ve strived to dress it up like a market leader. Strong visual appearance. On brand. Emotionally engaging. This is what shop owners want from a brand and we’ve tried to deliver just that.

Making good use of Wayne Levin’s underwater photography

Product display concepts that builds the Poseidon brand story while serving as a demo platform for the new Poseidon discovery.

The New Poseidon Website Design

One of the core components in the new brand platform is of course the digital presence. As we set out to revamp the brand online we first developed a series of different designs. All in all we designed twelve different layouts before deciding on the final design. It was key for us to find a designed that appealed both to the client as well as the target group. Once the site designs was approved and copywriter Judy was well on her way to revamp the tone of voice we brought in open source developers Devcore to help Poseidon bring the site to life.

Designing our way to a ‘on brand’ website

The finalized start page

Explore diving is a content driven section that will be filled with relevant brand content over time.

It was important for us to develop a design that felt dynamic.

Increase the overall look and feel

Overall one of our objectives was to increase the level of quality on all kinds of communication material. Among other things I developed photo briefs for both products as well as corporate information such as press photography and portraits. Once we’ve shot the photos together with Poseidons ‘house photographer’ Anders Kämpe I worked together with my homie retoucher and photographer Andreas Lübeck to bring out the best in the photos.

Making the product photography more engaging

An extremely short depth of field to ad a more personal look and feel to portrait shots.

Making product catalogs more engaging.

Finally I think this 4 page product catalog serve as a good example what happens when all this great brand material comes together into one simple yet important point of sale piece.

Poseidon Diving -A dream assignment

To work with Poseidon has been fantastic. To be part of a journey like this is great. To be able to control every component from strategy to tactical execution is even greater. The result is there to see but it’s just the beginning. As we speak we’re getting ready to initiate social media strategies including presence on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr and much more. We’re only just starting.

Where are we all heading. Where will we settle, MySpace, Facebook or Twitter? What technology will win? Will we all become iPhone owners or stick to Nokia? PC or Apple? When will we be pleased?

Brands are spending millions and millions in order to understand where people are settling down. Once that knowledge is secured they spend even more millions to develop a presence. But once people move on to another place and another community the same brands have a hard time turning their battleships around.

In order to develop a long term strategy for online communication brands have to understand that no technology will actually win. No community will be ‘the one’ community. We’re merely a population consisting of digital settlers moving from land to land trying to find the next gold rush. Once we find it we dig until there’s no more gold to be found or the place becomes so crowded that we cannot see the gold anymore. Then we move on. Some people stay behind and eventually turn lonely. But as time goes by even they will once again turn into settlers and move on to a new place where they can once again prosper.

Of course today the gold is conversation and the place is anywhere the tribe can prosper.

The digital world makes it easier than ever for consumers to keep moving from one land to another and that’s why brands have to do get ready to do the same. For the last 50 years it’s been about TV, Print and of course other channels. It’s been easy for marketeers to follow tribes or what we until now have defined as target groups. Now the power has shifted and we’re moving from place to place, technology to technology and user behavior to user behavior. So, brands have to do the same.

If you’re a CEO of a company trying to fight your way to the jungle. Don’t stick with one map and one path. Send out trackers constantly. Find new unique places that hasn’t yet been discovered cause one thing you can be sure of is – where there’s gold there will be people. In order to find those hidden gems you’ve gotta try out everything that comes your way. It’s all about being interested in the unknown and being able to filter the information. In other words – reorganize the way your company is working and get rockin’!

Six Degrees yesterday – Facebook today. ICQ yesterday – MSN & Twitter today. Tomorrow? Who knows. But one things for sure – follow the leaders cause they’ll show you where the next party is or become one yourself.

(quite a strange philosophical post but then again I’m on my way to a strange and philosophical meeting)

Whatever you do online, make sure you provide a value that is relevant to people who might want to use your service. By doing so you’ll generate more traffic, more buzz and finally a higher SEO ranking.

Box UK, a web consultancy agency, are living by this simple rule. The blog on their website is filled with ideas on how to succeed with your online presence. The old school marketing generation would say their giving their competence away. I beg to differ. One of the problem when it comes to digital communication is the competence on the buying side. Most brands won’t buy what they don’t understand. So either you lower yourselves to their level or educate them and thereby also provide a value.

One of Box latest post is an excellent one. It’s called ‘Monetizing your Web App: Business Model Options’.

Box has listed what they believe are the most successful ways to generate money from web applications. They’ve then taken their own list of possibilities and analyzed Webware 100 Top Web Apps for 2008. The conclusion then becomes a great check box model for monetizing your web apps.

The chart above shows the results of their survey: 34% use Advertising, 12% a Variable Subscription model, and 8% each for Virtual Products (typically digital downloads), Related Products (typically a large software company offering a free product to attract you to their platform) and Pay-Per-Use.

So, the question is. Do you wanna challenge the leaders within advertising financed sector or maybe penetrate the not yet so exploited areas?

Results?

• They’ve provided their visitors with a great relevant value that will drive traffic, generate comments and create positive SEO effects.
• Kevin Kelly, one of the worlds most respected digital gurus then picked it up.
• Then it’s spread all over the world and I among many other will talk about it.
• We all then drive trafic back to BOX.

Thanks Box for a great post!

Let me break it to you right away – the old way of planning and executing communication is slowly sinking into the ocean of well paid consultants that doesn’t do shit for your brand and the best you can do is throw yourselves into the lifeboats, get your ass to land and then find something else that makes your brand travel – and it’s not another boat.

You see, in order to paddle on to this new wave of communication you’ve gotta get different gear, different muscles and find new spots and this requires totally new ways of thinking. It’s not really about finding better creatives, cause the creative people out there are top notch, that’s not what I’m saying – I’m talking about choosing problem solving first and channels second. Understanding every new channel and integrating that knowledge as early as in your product development process will be key.

Building brands and companies tomorrow requires a new way of thinking around product and service development that include knowledge on how people use technical tools, mobiles, their way of life and habits – ultimately the entire communication chain already in the product development process.

Turn your brand & communication process up side down

Turns things upside down. In order to get an effect you should create an online strategy based on your business challenge. Create ideas for a digital presence and then brief someone the challenge to create advertising that focus on supporting your digital strategies. We’re moving into a new world where everything communicates and you cannot isolate things as if they had no contact with one another.

You might say; “My advertising agency understands this already and the media agency are providing me with great strategies” but I’m sorry, they don’t know jack shit in 75% of the cases. To be able to recommend strategies today you’ve gotta understand technology. When it comes to media agencies most of them don’t know jack shit in 90% of the cases. Well, of course they know how to place media and they’re all struggling to twist their business towards one where you produce media…but hey, do you really wanna consult someone that actually makes money on producing the same stuff they recommend.

Today most companies contact a digital partner once they have an ad or a couple of TVC’s and want to support that online. What you then get are shallow solutions that doesn’t do anything for the brand on a long term basis and probably not on a short term either.

Your brand is up for a challenge. You’ve set up the way you sell, the way you develop products, the way you communicate, the way you follow up, yes everything – on the old way of doing things. Internet didn’t exist in most cases when today’s organization strategies were drawn up. How do you communicate internally that you don’t need a sales force cause you’re selling online and now you need 20 content writers instead so that you can end up top 5 on Google. How do you cut your old relations cause that factory of yours aren’t developing new products fast enough.

If you’re looking to turns things around, start by asking yourself the following question:

• Can I involve integrated strategy people in my product development process?
• If I take 50% of my existing media budget and focus on creating content based value online – what will happen?
• How can we deliver new products in new packages based on new strategies in half the time as before?
• How can I invite my target group in our product development?
• Is it possible to move my communication plan from seasonal and product launch based communication to an ongoing established conversation?
• How can I move my marketing organization from one that is built to buy communication to one that creates, controls, publishes, talks, supports an ongoing conversation?
• How can I create content that is relative to my product and brand that search optimizes traffic on a daily basis yet continues to position us as the coolest brand on the block?
• Can we move from producing print and TVC’s to images, movies and other content that is relevant rather than selling?

This and probably another 100 questions should be answered. Run your company as an ideas company. You’re selling an idea about something that will change peoples life. Based on this idea – provide people with value, offer them something that will change theirs and not merely something that will empty their pockets and fill yours.

Get started today – stir up a storm, aim for the biggest ice block & head for the lifeboats!

Pepsi are on top of their game. With the help of R/GA they’ve created a campaign site welcoming Barack Obama to his presidency. They’ve tied the entire campaign site message to their tag line – Refreshing Everything.

The idea is very smart – piggy back mr President with your own brand message. On the site visitors are urged to contribute and upload their own ideas on how Barack Obama should refresh America.

These kind of ideas are nice if well executed. I think the conceptual idea and the way they’re using the refresh tag is on the spot. However, I don’t see why I have to wait for the damn thing to load. There is nothing in that site that requires flash based on the design and the functionality (except for the video streams of course). But, all in all, a great initiative.

The Pepsi campaign is off course not the first. By now you must have seen the IKEA piggy back a couple of days ago. That’s another great example of piggy back advertising.

I’ve been part of executing the same idea during the presidential campaign when we created the Apathy Party together with Strawberry Frog.

A couple of days ago ComScore published a Top Social Media Sites 2008 list. The list that I found on Techcrunch is an interesting read since I for one thought that Facebook and MySpace would be on top. But instead we find Blogger as the largest social media site in the world. Blogger and WordPress together actually outnumber Facebook and MySpace which means blogging is the number one social media activity in the world right now.

Blogger however is only a site while WordPress also provides an open source platform to bloggers who want to host their own blog (like me). This probably means that WordPress is up there with Blogger fighting for the number one spot.

It’s notable to see that Facebook is the one with the most positive trend. Blogs are showing a healthy growth too while Windows Live has taken a dive. Next years graph will show us if Windows Live has changed their trend with the new features launched in the end of 2008. I do however miss sites like Twitter, Digg and YouTube in the results. They’re just as much social media sites as Flickr, Scribd and Facebook.
Personal publishing remains strong and we can expect more people than ever getting involved with social media in one way or another in 2009.
 

Your advertising has to change

Reaching out to consumers however will require a more complex and advanced execution of communication than ever as people distribute their online behavior on more sites than ever. 

• Creative advertising that entertains your target group becomes more important than ever if you wanna stay ahead of your competition.
• Ideas that don’t include a social spread are only half way there.
• Understanding of technology is key.
• Brands that focus on distributing their communication rather than trying to pull traffic to their own campaign sites will be the winners.
• Making sure your content is relevant and close to brand and product is more important than ever.
• One idea - visible everywhere in every way. (i.e. don’t place video in one place, place it everywhere.)
• Make sure measurement and statistics is in place to show where to feed more money and where to cut the investments.
• Change campaign set up on a daily basis in the beginning of the campaign.
• Don’t forget the technical back end of the social sites – provide applications, widgets and code that supports your overall idea.

If you end up producing valuable content to the masses that have no relation to your products you’ll end up playing clown without getting paid.

I have spent the last hour looking through some of the latest additions to thefwa.com. What strikes me is how stunning most production are right now. The quality of the latest things released by agencies worldwide is amazing. Its also extra fun to see that a lot of the campaign sites has been produced by Swedish agencies such as B-Reel, Projector, KokoKaka, Northern Kingdom, Great Works, Daddy, Perfect Fools etc. The agencies behind these productions are considered some of the best agencies in the world and they all live up to the reputation!

Apart from the killer quality one thought stays behind – does this really work?

All the campaign sites I’m looking at takes quite a while to load (I’m on a 24mb fiber straight into my home) and when it’s loaded almost every site kicks of with an instruction on how to interact with the site; “Use your mouse to, use your keyboard to, click here to start interacting with, skip loader, etc etc” and very seldom is it the actual product that is being promoted that we are supposed to interact with. On top of this many sites lag – and I’m running them on the latest Macbook Pro released about a week ago.

Since you got agencies like Weiden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Euro RSCG, Crispin & Porter + Bogusky, 180, Forsman & Bodenfors and other great advertising agencies behind a lot of these productions, this must be the shit huh? I think not. It cannot be this hard for me as a potential client to enjoy a brand, a product or  a service…it’s to much inside out. I’m expected to be a fan even before I’m communicated to.

Let’s take a classic model – The AIDAS. Attention, Interest, Desire, Aquire & Satisfaction. According to this one, the actual advertising is executed in order to get the customers attention – we create drama, we differentiate, we position etc etc. If we’re privileged to work with a brand that got the power we probably create an integrated campaign that rolls out in both traditional and digital channels.
In short – we advertise

Once we got those poor bastards on the hook we do our best to reel them in and tell them more about why, how our product can solve their problem, become part of their personality and aspire to become part of their very own universe. We slowly move them over to Interest.
In short – we tell you more

Information about the product, service, brand is then thrown into the blender with all the great things that turns you on. Design, brand, innovations and more. This makes up the desire.
In short – we show you the product service up close

Thank you ma’am. Thank you mister. That’s the beautiful sound that turns our prospect into a customer. Money on our bank – Our prospect acquires and becomes a customer.
In short – you pay us money and walk home with the product.

(I’ll skip satisfaction for now as that’s even more complex online)

So, are online campaign sites paying any attention to AIDAS.

Once you in one way or another have actually found your way to one of these sites (because unlike a TVC they’re not interrupting something else you do and most of the have campaign unique url’s) do you then think once you’ve seen the logo that you’ll be open to playing games in order to be sold a product? I mean, if you in one way or another became interested of a car brand and then made it to the dealer, would you accept first to enter a labyrinth on the way in to the showroom where you had to win 4 secret keys in order to see the actual car. Of course not!

Seek attention where attention should be sought.

A quick example of digital communication activities grouped in accordance with AIDAS.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t entertain people online. I’m not saying we shouldn’t dramatize campaigns. I’m not saying we shouldn’t stop coming up with great ideas. What I’m saying is – seek attention where attention should be sought.

Move these great campaigns into places where people spend time to enjoy themselves. Video sites, Gaming sites, Social networks, Blogs, Newspapers, TV networks, Portals and all other place where people are having a good time. Seek partnerships, place micro campaigns, integrate into XBOX live, Wii and Playstation and where ever you think its relevant. Don’t climb mountains and swim oceans to get them to your URL, instead – just like the offline world, place your advertising where your target is instead of trying to bring them to your place. How would it work if outdoor advertising urged you to drive 2 kilometer/miles in order for you to experience an advertisement.

If your lucky, just like with traditional advertising, you’ll send them to your brand site, off or online store etc – then you get to raise interest and create desire.

Of course AIDAS is not the only model to go by. It’s just an illustration of the problem!

To sum things up – here’s what I think we should do:

• Let’s all try to take online to the next step.
• We have to understand that it’s more complexed than traditional advertising. Interactivity, technology, usability plays a key role. As always communication, drama and ideas are key, but we cannot create anything online without taking in these other pieces into account. 
• Where our target is in terms of the consumer journey should steer what we do.
• Internet is not a campaign site, nor a banner or a website. Internet is everything you can do offline but online. Make sure your digital ideas show up everywhere.

Below are only some of the sites I had a look at this last hour.
What do you think? Inside/out or is this what you all want?

• Hasbro – Risk
• Samsung – 42 good things
• IKEA – Come into the closet
• VW Clever Innovations
• Volvo Ocean Race
• Doritos – Hotel 626
• Robinsons – Tastebuddyland
• VW Babymaker 3000
• Nokia – Somebodyelsesphone
• McDonals – Smilefactory
• Samsung – Samsung Music
• Honda – Drive Every Drop
• adidas – Originals Flash
• Smart – The truth about smart