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Gotland Grand National 2011. Ett av mitt livs största utmaningar.

ronnestam — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:13:00 +0000

This post, written in Swedish tells the tale about my 2011 start in Gotland Grand National.

För 32 år sedan gick jag i skolan med Marie Hessel. Sedan dess har vi setts någon gång då och då i samband med någon klassåterträff eller i liknande sammanhang. Sen plötsligt står hon där och hänger i baren på Scandic Anglais Hotel i Stockholm. Lika sprudlande glas som vanligt berättar hon glatt att om 14 dagar ska hon åka till Gotland och köra Grand National på sin endurohoj. Ju mer hon berättar desto mer minns jag de klassiska bilderna från 1989 när Grand National var lerigare än någonsin. Inuti min hjärna är det någon som utbrister “Jag vill också åka” och ur munnen kommer samma ord. Marie ler stort och frågar “Åker du också motorcykel?” Jag svarar snabbt “nej, men hur svårt kan det vara?”

Marie Hessel på motorcykel genom öknen. 1999 startade Marie som en av världens första kvinnor på motorcykel i det ökända rallyt Paris Dakar.

Någon timme senare är vadet klart och bevittnat av våra vänner i baren. Om Marie fixar båge, klubbmedlemskap, licens och nummerlapp så lovar jag att lära mig att köra och fullfölja loppet om två veckor. Framåt natten när jag ska lägga mig för att sova mig minns jag att jag med skräckblandat förtjusning hoppas att Marie faktiskt fixar allt det där hon lovat och att det blir en tur till Gotland för min del. Redan nästa morgon börjar SMS droppa in från Marie. “Olle Ohlsson har båge, jag återkommer om allt det andra” messar Marie. Och på den vägen var det. Inom loppet av två dagar har Marie säkerställt att jag inte kan dra mig ur. Jag ska köra Gotland Grand National.

En tidig söndagsmorgon, helgen innan tävlingen möter jag upp Marie strax utanför Upplands Väsby. Vi lastar på hennes hoj på ett gammalt släp jag fått låna. Strax efter rullar vi upp ekipaget utanför Olle Ohlssons garage utanför Arlanda. 10 minuter senare tar Olle och hans kollega Björn tar emot mig och Marie utanför deras lokaler. Där utanför står 4 vackra Husaberg redo att tyglas i skogen. Jag känner hur det pirrar i magen när hälsar på grabbarna. Det är en god stämning och vi har en vacker höstdag att njuta av. In i garaget, på med skydd, stövlar, kläder och hjälm. Vi skriver ned allt på en lapp eftersom det är samma kläder jag ska ha på mig helgen efter när det är dags för Grand National.

En härlig uppsättning endurohojar i Olles garage.

Bara minuter efter står vi ute på gårdsplanen och Björn ställer frågan “Har du kört mycket båge förut?” Nae, inte mycket men jag har kört en jäkla massa mountainbike svarar jag. Båda svaren är på gränsen till lögnaktiga, jag har ju aldrig kört båge förutom några hundra meter på Farsans båge för något år sedan och Mountainbike var herrans många år sedan, men säger jag det får jag väl inte sätta mig på hojen tänker jag. Det är väl precis som vanligt – ettan ned och resten upp säger jag med spelat självförtroende. Marie, hon står mest och skrattar högt eftersom hon vet precis hur mycket jag kört båge. Björn och jag snackar en stund om allt möjligt medan en av de andra killarna som ska med oss ut i skogen gör sig klar. Då kör vi då säger Björn.

Jag svettas som fan, pulsen slår, jag har bara ramlat 2 gånger på 30 minuter men känner att nu måste vi stanna snart annars ramlar jag av cykeln. Björn måste ha hört mina tankar för han stannar till i skogen där vi kört. “Du hänger med bra” säger Björn. Och det gör jag, jag är förvånad, men jag hänger med bra. Sen tar Björn ett mindre teoripass medan jag lyssnar och klunkar i mig vatten från min Camelback samtidigt.

Lagom slut efter min första träning någonsin på en endurohoj.

Ju längre dagen går desto mindre trött blir jag. Stå upp ofta, knip benen runt tanken, foten fram i kurvorna, sitt långt fram på tanken, armarna rakt ut när du kör, rör dig med cykeln, ta skvalparna halv elva osv osv osv. När vi kör in till garaget igen känner jag mig tröttare i huvudet än i kroppen. Men jag känner att Grand National, det kommer jag klara av.

Grand National. Den 5:e november 2011 på Gotland.

Efter att ha kört både vilse på vägen till tävlingsområdet och gått vilse i depån möter jag upp Olle och hans gäng. Marie och alla andra är redan på plats och har till och med hunnit med att klä på sig, anmäla sig och registrera cyklarna. Jag kastar kvickt på mig alla kläderna och får order att åka iväg till registreringen. Jäklar vad skönt det känns att sitta upp på hojen igen. Jag puttrar iväg igenom depåområdet och hittar till registreringen. Transponder på plats, hjälm och skydd. Bara 30 sekunder senare är jag registrerad och klar. Jag hinner inte riktigt tänka efter just nu utan det är dags att åka mot starten.

Dags för start.

Ute på ett fält en bra bit ifrån depåområdet tornar startområdet nu upp sig. Det är helt sjukt. Överallt står det åkare. Det är inte mycket publik men över 2000 endurohojar på samma ställe inger respekt. Jag ska starta i den gruppen som står längst bak och bestämmer mig för att ställa mig längst bak i även den gruppen. Jag har ju ingen aning om hur det kommer gå så jag tar det säkra före det osäkra. Vi ska stå här tills att en signal ljuder och då ska vi gå med cyklarna några hundra meter för att ställa upp för start. Halvvägs möter Björn upp och tar mina överdragskläder. Jag är glad att min 390 kubikare har en motor för det är inte helt lätt att putta fram cykeln över kalkstensåkern här på Gotland. Men till slut är jag framme. Vi får varmköra motorn i tio minuter innan starten. Jag fattar inte vad det här ska vara bra för, men alla andra gasar ju så jag gasar med. Sen är det dags att stänga av motorerna. Speakern ropar ut att vi ska vänta in grönt ljus och sen är det tävling. Glasögonen rättas till, handen på startknappen och tystnad, tystnad och ännu mer tystnad. Grönt! Draken vaknar till liv och hela Toftafältet dränks i ljudet av tusentals bågar. Och iväg.

Starten på Gotland Grand National 2011

Det går bra. Det går faktiskt riktigt bra. Jag försöker tänka på allt Björn sa förra helgen samtidigt som jag kryssar igenom fältet. Jag kör i princip bara om folk hela tiden. Förutom något tjuvstopp ibland i toppen av backkrön så går det undan. I var och varannan kurva ligger människor i högar och krälar av banan. Jag har aldrig i någon sport jag utövat förut sett så många skadade på så kort tid. En tanke flyger genom huvudet: Vi människor är bra konstiga som trots alla dessa skadade överallt ändå bara kör på. Allt eftersom tiden går börjar jag få bra häng igenom kurvorna. Det här är grymt kul.

Den mytomspunna hästskon

Hästskon. En orgie i lera. Bilden är tagen av Odepedagogen.

Efter att vi klättrat uppför över kalkstensklippor en bra bit svänger banan 180° och plötsligt kör i full fart mot den berömda hästskon. Framför mig tornar ett slagfält från medeltiden upp sig. Överallt ligger människor och krälar med sina fallna hästar. “Håll dig på kanterna!” Camillas (Arnalid) råd från dagen innan gör sig påmint. Jag tar vänsterkanten och kör så självsäkert jag bara kan rakt fram i leran. Det går bra till en början men sen gör orutinen sig påmind. Jag ligger för nära föraren framför mig och när han sätter framhjulet rakt i ett lerigt hål samtidigt som han uppenbarligen sitter för långt fram slår han omkull. Jag ställer mig på bromsen och där kommer första vurpan som ett brev på posten. Jag ramlar dock bra och är snabbt uppe.

Blir intervjuad av Sveriges Television under Gotland Grand National 2011.

Lustigt nog har jag vält cykeln precis bredvid Sveriges Television där också Camilla står. En kort intervju med TV kameran som tyvärr klipptes bort och lite peptalk med Camilla, sen är jag igång igen. Hästskon går hur bra som helst.

Andra varvet och ett motorstopp.

Första varvet har gått grymt bra. Tiden är inget att skryta med, men jag startade längst bak och har dessutom stått och slöat i hästskon. När jag passerar depån bestämmer jag mig för att strunta i pausen. Nu ska jag göra en bra tid! Andra varvet går grymt bra. Jag kör förbi många i startfältet, känner mig mer hemma på cykeln och när jag står inför ett val ner på öppna fältet att ta ett svårt eller enkelt spår känns det svåra spåret självklart. Snart ska dock orutinen göra sig påmind igen. Nedanför depån på det öppna fältet ligger banans lerigaste pöl i år. Det är riktigt tung lera och den är djup. Här går jag in med samma strategi som i hästskon, håll till vänster och håll hög fart. Det funkar. Jag surfar igenom leran i hög fart. Men så händer det som inte får hända igen. Jag hinner i fatt en annan åkare och istället för att bara köra om lägger jag mig bakom i hans spår. Han faller och där står jag nu igen. Jag ramlar inte men blir stående i djup lera. Strax efter kommer föraren innan mig igång, men i hans försök att ta sig ur leran sprayar han mig och min cykel fulla med lera. Efter några minuter är han lös men jag ser ut som en lerfigur från någon utgrävning på Gotland. När jag nu själv ska loss överhettas cykeln snabbt och stannar. Jag försöker starta om, den startar och stannar. Så här håller det på några minuter innan jag inser att det här kommer inte gå. Jag bestämmer mig nu för att vänta en stund och låta cykeln kallna. Medan rensar jag kylaren från lera. Men det här är hopplöst. Jag står mitt i spåret och varje gång jag fått bort geggan är cykeln täckt igen.

En nedskitad Husqvarna motorcykel.

Efter ungefär tio minuter tar jag beslutet att flytta bort bågen från spåret och försöka igen. Ett styrketräningspass senare står jag nu på gräset och försöker starta hojen igen. Helt kört. Det ryker och batteriet låter som om det börjar tröttna. Jag bestämmer mig nu för att ringa Olle och be om hjälp. Sagt och gjort. Av med tröja, hjälm och handskar. Mobilen ligger i min Camelback. Några minuter senare svarar Olle att de kommer, men det kommer ta en stund. Förbi rusar förarna förutom de som fastnar då förstås. Det ligger människor i klasar. Någon cykel har helt sjunkit ner i leran. Äldre hjältar sitter i leran och orkar inte röra varken sig själva eller sina cyklar. Efter 20 minuter bestämmer jag mig för att prova att få igång cykeln igen. Underbart! Den startar på första försöket. Jag kastar iväg ett kort SMS till Olle att jag är igång igen och slänger på mig kläderna. Nu jävlar ska det åkas.

In i depå.

Det är en överlycklig Olle som möter upp mig när jag väl hittar fram till depån. Jag babblar oavbrutet om hur grymt det här är och trycker i mig energikex och saft. Björn och Olle kollar hojen och konstaterar att allt ser bra ut. Iväg, iväg! Ropar Olle.

Sista varvet, en vurpa och min medalj!

När jag ger mig ut på tredje varvet är det revansch som gäller. Nu har det gått så mycket tid så att eliten börjar komma ikapp. I början svischar de förbi och det gäller att hålla sig ur vägen. Men jag börjar snart få bra koll så jag försöker hänga med. Och ju längre varvet går desto bättre hänger jag med. När jag kommer fram till leran ute på det öppna fältet ligger tre åkare i en hög mitt i spåret. Jag bestämmer mig för att inte göra samma misstag igen och väntar innan leran på att det ska bli fritt spår. 5 minuter senare klyver jag leran likt en Vaxholmsbåt klyver vågorna. Det går grymt bra!

Snart är jag tillbaka inne i skogen igen. Hala kalkstenshällar, stigar, grus och stenar stora som cykelhjälmar körs över med rasande fart. Det går så grymt bra att jag börjar ta skvalparna (det heter så tror jag när det är många gupp efter varandra) på bakhjulet. Jag håller fint ställe genom kurvorna och jag börjar faktiskt bli riktigt bra på det här. Förutom enstaka elitåkare är det faktiskt jag som kör om mest folk. Inte tvärtom.

Mitt ben blåslaget av gotlands kalkstenar.

Jag blir övermodig. När jag försöker hänga på elitåkarna börjar jag köra på marginalen. Och där inne i skogen när jag landat efter att hoppat ned för en mindre klippa av kalksten klämmer jag åt handbromsen lite för hårt. Framhjulet viker sig och jag störtar till marken. När jag faller hamnar hela mitt högerben under cykeln. Jag har dragit av alla muskler i min högra vad av är min första. Höften är bruten är min andra. Höger hand är också bruten är min tredje tanke. Jag har tidigare i livet brutit ett stort antal ben och även ryggen så jag vet vad jag talar om. Men den här gången ska det visa sig att jag har fel. När jag fått bort cykeln och hunnit slappna av, allt medan elitåkare far förbi på båda sidorna om mig, börjar faktiskt benet kännas ok. Jag kommer gå i mål!

I mål!

Väldigt stolt efter att ha genomfört mitt livs första endurorace!

10 minuter senare kör en trött men mycket glad Johan Ronnestam över mållinjen i Gotland Grand National. Vad som verkade som en omöjlig utmaning var möjligt. Jag inser samtidigt att jag har haft tur som inte skadat mig mer. Den absolut största överraskningen med det här äventyret var just skador. Jag har aldrig deltagit i en sport där jag sett så många olyckor på så kort tid. Gotlands kalkstenar är grymma och havet av lera oförlåtligt.

Med medaljen kring halsen åker jag igenom depåområdet. Kroppen är varm av glädjen över att vara färdig. Samtidigt längtar jag efter mer. Det här var bland det roligaste jag gjort i hela mitt liv. Jag gjorde det! Stort tack Marie för att du tog mig med på en fantastisk resa!

15 keys to deliver a fantastic keynote presentation on stage

ronnestam — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:51:55 +0000

Inspired by Swedish blogger Fredrik Wass who stated that he will blog for a 100 days in a row I felt I had to get my blog going again. So here we go!

Photographed by Paulina while forecasting trends at the Creative Summit together with among others Brian Solis and Alf Rehn.

In 2011 I was honored to be selected as the keynote speaker for events all over Europe. I delivered more than 80 keynotes on entrepreneurship, creative ideas, future branding, communication and business development, some of them shared here on Slideshare. In more than 90% of the occasions I was given the highest ranking of all the speakers by the audience. Hell, I even spoke for 24 hours in a row without any sleep. In other words – I’m confident I have some thoughts to share on how to deliver a great keynote presentation.

Here are 15 keys to deliver a fantastic keynote presentation.

1. Before even getting on stage – make sure you’ve got your logos, pathos and ethos wired.

What you speak about is 50% of your keynote, but the way you look and sound giving that keynote is the other 50%. The worlds first branding expert Aristotles knew how to make people buy what he sold. He divided the means of persuasion, appeals, into three categories; Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

- Ethos: the source’s credibility, the speaker’s/author’s authority

My credibility when I’m speaking is of course a mix of how I look, my credentials and the way I bring my message forward on stage. A common mistake I see over and over again is when speakers enter the stage and then go; “Before I speak, let me tell you about who I am and the company I’m representing.” This is more or less totally unnecessary since you’re there for a reason. If you do your thing right people will understand that you know your shit. After all, someone invited you so the people in front of you in the crowd will surely expect you to deliver. Remember that no one knows what you will say before you say it so don’t be to hard on yourself if you forget something you were supposed to say!

Who would you listen to if you were a banker? Who would you listen to if you were an Art Director?

An important thing though is to avoid making people angry (if that’s now what your assignment is) by dressing totally wrong, swearing or making fun of things that matter to the people in the room. A certain amount of selling should always be taken into account even if it requires you to dress up differently than you’re used to.

- Logos: the logic used to support a claim (induction and deduction); can also be the facts and statistics used to help support the argument.

When it comes to logos there’s different ways to handle this. Reliable statistics, famous quotes, facts and but also your own observations. However if you only bring up a observation as a proof of your theory you’ll tend to make people feel unsure about your whole presentaiton. But if you make sure to find patterns in historical information and present them in an understandable way you’re usually home free.

In 2007 I spoke about how Facebook would be the worlds most trafficked site with the help of this technical analysis of site traffic.

After all – if you are giving a keynote about future trends or an idea the world have never seen you will have to present logics that support your claims. The history if often your best friend when speaking about things in the future.

- Pathos: the emotional or motivational appeals; vivid language, emotional language and numerous sensory details.

Mirror mirror on the wall! Yes it’s actually true. The more you rehearse the better you get. Use your face, eyes, arms, voice and your whole body. Once you’ve got it wired get out there and rock the party!

2. If you don’t know the subject – don’t speak at all.

The worst presentations I’ve ever given over the years are the ones where I didn’t really master the subject. Avoid moments like that. Of course that shouldn’t keep you from challenging yourselves every now and then. But don’t choose the big arenas for those crying games.

3. Ask what your contractor want

I’ve learned that no one knows your audience better than your contractor. Therefor it’s key that you ask what they want to achieve with your keynote. Make people happy? Make people angry? Make people scared or give people hope. Still I don’t want to much information. It’s important that the contractor doesn’t shape my presentation After all, I am the professional. My solution is the five bullet point rule. Before every presentation I’m expected to give I ask my contractor to send me five short bullets that explains who I’m speaking in front, what they want them to learn, how they want the audience to feel once I’m done and what the goal with the event is.

4. Sell one thing!

This is an easy one so I’ll keep it short – If you’re selling fish don’t make up stories about dead meat. Make sure people understans that know one knows big fish as you do!

5. Drop the corporate bullshit

If you’re representing your company and is expeted to sell something then make sure you share your knowledge and people will ask you in the end what you sell. Nothing sells as competence. Trust people to contact you if they thought you knew what you were talking about. If you’re on stage purely focused on selling no one will listen to what you’re actually selling.

6. Drop the bullets.

Sometimes the best solution is to make fun of the worst.

No one wants you to read bullets from corporate slides. We’ve all been there. Stuck in the middle of an audience listening to some boring odd character looking not on us but instead on his own presentation and reading those bullets like dead people read poems…not good. Please stop giving keynotes if you don’t know how to sell your shit! Tons of corporate CEO’s are really good at this. They’re sent off to a stage somewhere in never-never-land expected to deliver a keynote with a deck of slides in their hands prepared by a assistent somewhere. I hate CEO’s speaking of shit they don’t know shit about. What’s up with that?

7. Drop the corporate fonts

Every slide in your deck should be there for a reason!

There’s nothing as boring as a presentation with one headline font and then another one for the rest. You’re on stage to inspire people, teach them something and especially keep them awake. No two slides should be the same.

8. Tell stories from your own life.

Preparing a keynote and a story about how my snowboard career ended.

Nothing brings life to a presentation like your own life. True stories that are coming from your own life are the best. People have never heard them before, they’re authentic and people out of some reason always count them as real stories. Of course, if you end up telling stories about Marsians and shit like that people will probably not belive you.

9. You’ve also got ‘black’ slides in your deck!

This is your most valuable slide!

In the world of photoshop, keynote, powerpoint and prezis maybe the most valuable color of them all – black – is often forgotten. If you’ve got something to say that you really really really want people to listen to. Place a black slide in the middle of the deck and let those words out without distraction. If you’re doing it right you’ll have your audience spellbound.

10. Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse some more.

This is one of the things I’m really bad at. But every time I’ve done a presentation that I’m really proud of I’ve almost rehearsed it. I even rehearse presentations that I know by heart already. You can never rehearse enough!

11. It’s your stage. Then make sure it fits your needs.

One of the key factors to delivering a great keynote is the actuall stage. Far to many times have I entered a stage that didn’t match the venue. Maybe the stage was to big compared to how many people visited the event or vice versa. Every now and then someone has placed a wide table between you and the audience – remove it. If people take their places far back in the room – leave the stage and get closer to them. The last thing you want is an audience that thinks your on stage acting superior and distant.

12. One minute before entering the stage

An audience in Zagreb minutes before I’m entering the stage.

Ok, so you’re all done and prepared to give the speech of your life. Remember those five bullet points I wrote about. Now it’s time to get into presentation mode. When I’m waiting to enter the stage I think about these five bullets. The most important one however is how did my contractor want people to feel once I’m done. If they wanted me to make people happy I’m smiling like a dumbass those last 60 seconds. I they wanted me to provoke the audience I’m getting myself psyched up and angry. If they wanted me to make people feel enlightened I’m getting ready to enlighten people. And then I do my best to keep that feeling alive all through the presentation.

13. If something goes wrong – restart yourselves.

Once you’re up there doing your best you will experience moments of dispair. You might see someone in the audience looking bored, someone looks tired or maybe you’ll get an angry comment. Now is the time to seek your inner strenght. Think back to that presentation mode you were supposed to deliver upon. Take a breath, pause, make people wait and then restart. You’ll notice that this will get you back on track!

14. Never lose track of time.

Make sure you prepare your presenter display right.

Rule number one of all presentations. If you’ve got 20 minutes it’s 20 minutes. Not less and definitely not more. If you’re using Apple Keynote you should make sure to set up your second screen with timer and a clock. Another good idea can be to download an app that Per Axbom told me about. It’s called Timer for iPhone and let’s you set up sections to keep track of time. It’s a great help!

15. Shine!

Now it’s up to you! Rock on!

Case: Revamping Vasakronan. Swedens largest property brand.

ronnestam — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:35:56 +0000

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!

24 Hours Live. Sammanfattning, höjdpunkter och ett stort tack!

ronnestam — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:05:38 +0000

(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.

Answering 10 questions about the future of communication (in Croatia to some extent)

ronnestam — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 09:49:39 +0000

About 2 month ago I was invited to Best Internet and beautiful Zagreb in Croatia to host a full day workshop on the future of communication. Me another 85 people had a great day where I mixed speaking sessions with, what I love the most, open discussions.

Before this event I was contacted by the leading business newspaper in Croatia – Lider. They wanted me to answer 10 questions that they would base an article on. Today as I was cleaning my desktop on my computer I thought – since you probably understand as much Croatian as I do I thought this could be a good blog post. So here we go.

Johan Ronnestam answers 10 questions about the future of communication (in Croatia to some extent

1. Once you are on the internet your competition is whole world and people speak in one language (mostly english). How can local brands stay local or share national values while ‘living’ in virtual world?

Johan Ronnestam: By being just that – Local. In a globalized world people will look for the unique brand that delivers something beyond what you can shop in every parts of the world, every country and every city. The times when we all wanted Starbucks coffee is soon to be over. Everyone who’s been traveling the last ten years recognize the feeling. You travel all over the world only to find the same brands you can shop for at home. Branding and marketing has always been about differentiation – and that’s why building on local uniqueness is the way forward.

2. You wrote that brand should offer value, not just sell, sell, sell…They should teach consumers some skills or just share knowledge. I agree, but how to explain it to CEO or CFO? What and when could they expect return on investment?

Johan Ronnestam: First off. It’s really not that different from a non-digital world. The brands you wanna come back to are the brands that offer more than their product. Traditionally this used to be about well educated sales personel, customer magazines, cliniques and more. It’s time to move this knowledge online but with the understanding that online means transparency. It’s easier than ever to compare products and features. So – the online salesmen (sites) gotta focus on value over sales. Sales will follow. When it comes to return on investment I think the answer is long term growth in social networks, search and obviously brand recognition. The social and search part can easily be measured. The brand recognition is tough to isolate – but that’s always been the case. Hasn’t it?

3. Do we really know our consumers? I mean, which are the easiest ways to get to know them or test them?

Johan Ronnestam: No we don’t. We tend to think we know our consumers but the consumer (if you even wanna call them that today) today is not the same as yesterday. People are more like chameleons. We tend to jump back and forth when it comes to identity. We simply don’t wanna be tagged. Online however we can really know what our visitors do and how they perform tasks. But don’t fall into the trap thinking you know who they are. A 18 year old guy from the suburbs wont react the same way twice.

4. What are your predictions concerning investment in internet as a media? What is going to happen with traditional media?

Johan Ronnestam: In a near future I don’t think we’ll look at the landscape as a media landscape. We’ll look at it more as a formated landscape. What I mean with this is that TV commercial won’t be a TV commercial any more. A forced video message however will live on. We’ll always be in need of distributing messages containing products and brands that people never heard of – for that we can not rely on search, social media etc. Someone has to find it first. PR and ambassadors marketing will of course mean a lot for those kind of messages but there will always be a place for interrupted messages like the ones TV, Print and Outdoor deliver today. The effect of the digital revolution however is that the information gathering, the desire and even the sales part of the consumer journey will be digitalised and therefor transformed.

5. In Croatia experts talk about digital revolution, internet marketing campaigns etc, but still, none has the courage to invest or try those virtual project like those in western market. What should the do first (as beginners) and what are the things they should know before investing in internet communication? What are the biggest signals that market (consumers) are ready for that kind of communication?

Johan Ronnestam: Prototypes. Experiments. Failure. Success. Meaning – you’ll have to mark a certain part of your media budget, not your production budget, for experiments that might lead you forward. The internet is unique in the sense that no two solutions are the same for two brands. You have to find your own way forward. One thing is for sure – as we’re seeing a shift in how people consumer brands we’ll also see new winners and losers on the market. The looses, as always when a behavior changes, will definitely be the ones that doesn’t welcome change.

6. How to boost traffic and where does it come from mostly?

Johan Ronnestam: Great brands today and tomorrow are built on great products. If you got em’ people will find you. If you’re product doesn’t stand the competition. Start there.

7. You wrote that faces, copy and design are very important and warned that competitors are just click away. Can you tell us something about that?

Johan Ronnestam: In the real world if you’ve found your way to a car dealer and everything doesn’t meet your demand it’s still for you to get into the car, drive for 30 minutes and find that next dealer. Online that click is just one step away. If your audience doesn’t get your design, understand your navigation, like your tone of voice he/she will type a new search into Google and move to the next brand.

8. What can we expect in future? Boom of conversational marketing? What about virtual advertising?

Johan Ronnestam: I actually think we’re in a 10-15 year period where small brands can bloom. But once those large brands find their way online for real (yep I think most of them suck at online communication) we’ll see how Adwords auctions will be about money again – and large brands got loads of that stuff. However – I do hope some of those small brands find their way up on the global scene

9. What are your thoughts on trend of branded web-series?

Johan Ronnestam: If focused on value regarding the category in which their products exist – great. Otherwise mostly stupid.

10. Internet is all about speed…What about emotions?

Johan Ronnestam: Technology and user interfaces is not what the brand is about. It’s merely the means to deliver the consumer experience of the product. So, photography, video and copy equals emotions. The actual websites however should focus on conversion, usability. By doing so you’ll end up having consumers feeling positive. I think Apple proves that both can be achieved side by side.

Ah. And before you leave this post. Here’s the presentation I held:

110412 workshop in Zagreb

View more presentations from Johan Ronnestam

I Am Free. You Are Free. We Are All Free!

ronnestam — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:11:19 +0000

I was born into this world as free as any child. No religion, no political point of views, no ideas about what was right or wrong. Nothing. Just free. And I screamed!

Me – around two years old walking our dog named Gorko.

Then, just as you, I was brought home, fed, raised and I started to grow. Depending on where in the world we live, who bring us up and what happens around us we’re shaped. We’re shaped not into what we want but into a mix of what our parents, friends and the society wants.

Since then I’ve been trying to break free. Not from it all. There are tons of things I never want to be free off, but also tons of things I’d like to leave behind.

The most interesting journey lays ahead of me. It is covered in darkness. You and I call it the future. The future, that’s what I want to shape all by myself. I want it to be built on my beliefs, my ideas and my thoughts. I want to succeed. I’m willing to fail. But I’m not willing to let you shape it for me. In fact I’m prepared to fight the rest of my life to stay free and true to my own beliefs. This is what drives me. The continious strive for freedom. Not money. Not status. Pure freedom.

Some people say I don’t listen, but I do! I’ll listen to what you have to say but I’ll decide for myself. That freedom – I’ll fight for it the rest of my life.

Maybe Robyn says it best: “Don’t fucking tell me what to do!

Don’t Fucking Tell Me What To Do by robyn

2010 Is Coming To An End. Here Are Some Things I Did

ronnestam — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 20:08:51 +0000

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)

Case: The Story Of How Sweden’s Newest Bank ‘Marginalen Bank’ Was Created, Implemented and Launched

ronnestam — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 14:44:15 +0000

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!

Talar framtidens kommunikation med Göran Adlén och TrendTV nu igen

ronnestam — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:26:31 +0000

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.

A Sustainable Plan And My Point Of View

ronnestam — Sun, 16 May 2010 08:09:25 +0000

Challenge the establishment. That’s what you should do if you’re young and don’t really have to care about being fired. (Actually that’s what you always should do!) That’s exactly what the students over at Berghs School of Communication have done this year once again.

Their contribution to an often shallow advertising world is driving sustainability. They’ve decided to make their entire final exhibition about sustainability, they’ve established a prize that award sustainable communication and they’ve also just launched their campaign site that promotes their final exhibition – A Sustainable Plan.

About a month ago I got the question if I could share my point of view on sustainability on their site. Their question really got me thinking but then last week I came back with my answer. Read it there or here:

Sustainability and brands – my point of view

A choice between choosing and not to choose

It’s not up to me to define what sustainability is all about. It’s up to each and one. You and me need to decide for ourselves. What are we prepared to do to save the world and maybe even more importantly – what are we not prepared to do. After all sustainability goes both ways. A choice between choosing and choosing not to choose. But it’s our choice.

The problem today is: What are we choosing?

The future ecosystem of consumption it built upon trust between brands and consumers. Responsible brands, they provide us people with guidance. Through their communication brands lead us into a sustainable future. The products and services they offer us are the tools we need to lead the life we choose while helping this planet to endure.

This ecosystem is a fragile one. After all, how can we as individuals really know if a pair of jeans are made out of ecological fabrics. How can we know that a chair produced in the third world hasn’t been put together by kids. What says your favorite brand aren’t lying when their telling us that they are giving back to society?

Let’s be honest, very few brands have even started their journey to become truly sustainable and it’s because most brands still run their business with one goal – make money. Behind that thick door that leads to the board room you’ll find a bunch of people that have been around for ages. Most successful brands today are very good at two things – making money while staying ahead of competition. In order to do that they’ve built up walls of secrecy. For these brands transparency is a bad thing. Yet transparency is exactly what we consumers need to be able to separate the green-washers from the true heroes. So, for now we’re left with trust. Trust what brands are telling us about their sustainable plans but not truly knowing the real ruth.

Governments all over the world are shaping new laws and regulations that will lead both brands and consumers towards a sustainable future. Until they’ve done with their work we as consumers write the laws that drive change. Our money is our pen and the lifestyle we lead is our paper. Award brands that are acting sustainable and transparent while punishing the greenwashers. It’s our only option.

So, let’s end this where we opened. It’s a choice between choosing and not to choose. And if your brand is not part of the sustainable ecosystem for real – I’ll choose not to choose.

3 Social Media Models That Will Guide Your Brand Into The Conversation Landscape

ronnestam — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:26:17 +0000

Think social media and conversational marketing might be the next train to heaven for your brand but don’t know where to board? Well, here’s three social media marketing models that will make sure you’ll find your station.

If you wanna get moving into the social country of love where conversation rules you’ve gotta get one thing straight. Valuable content is king. Buying a loudspeaker and start tweeting wont get you anywhere. Swedish brands like Comhem and Boxer have effectively proven that just twittering the 140 sign language doesn’t earn you any followers. Every social network will provide you with it’s own possibilities and traps. A well executed strategy is a must or you’ll end up in a minefield.

Here are 3 models by Johan Ronnestam that will guide your brand towards a successful social media strategy.

3 Models That Will Guide You Into The Social Media Landscape

The Social Staircase

The Social Staircase is a model that focus on the overall process. It’s the stuff that pays for your ticket to love.
The Social Tool Matrix

Now you know what kind of presence your business needs. Now it’s time to map the tools to make sure you know what to keep your mouth shut, when to speak and when to listen.
The Social Viral Spiral

This is about speed. Spread that love I’m talking about below. But make sure you do it with finesse and timing. Create a couple of Social Viral Spirals and you’re ready to make out!

How your brand makes good use these three models is entirely up to you. When I’m working with brands within this area I off course spend quite a lot of energy and time on getting it right. But hopefully it will be of value for you without my help. Here we go:

1. Get your strategy right with the Social Staircase

The Social Staircase consists out of 4 steps that guides your brand into the conversation landscape called Social Media

I have outlined 4 steps that make up the Social Staircase. These are the ones I’d suggest you’d use too when you wanna move into the social room.

Step 1 -Strategy
Establish a strategy that supports your business. Whatever you do in life you should have a strategy in place that supports your business. In other words this means you should strive to achieve your vision, your goals and making sure you don’t loose money while doing it. This should be your approach to social media initiatives too.You should of course be prepared to risk money since it’s still an early adoption initiative. But still you should strive to measure results and revenues. Sooner or later your boss will ask you what he’s paying for and then that answer should be well prepared.

Step 2 – Presence
The mother of all conversions is content. Think about it – when you’re at a party, how long do you think your conversation would last if you didn’t provide any true value. Bullshit or merely staying quiet wont earn you any new friends. Of course some people you’ve known since way back will stay put but sooner or later even them will stop inviting you to their party.

I haven’t bothered to create any models for this step. It’s a simple rule. Think about you and your business. What value can you provide people with and in what format? Blogs, Video, Photos, Podcasts, Livestreams, Advisory, Games, Knowledge etc. Based on your strategy in step 1 – what kind of value can you provide your target group and potential fans with? Cause that should always be your goal – turning people into fans! If you’ve done your homework this should work like a charm.

If you’re looking for inspirations. Head over to the Social Media Wiki.
Step 3 – Tools
Ok. So know you know that kind of presence you’re after. Then it’s time to gear up. Facebook, Twitter, Slideshare, WordPress, LinkedIn, Scribd, Google Buzz might be the obvious ones. But dig deeper – there’s something for everyone out there and you should consider where your content will do the boogaloo at it’s best!Tools defined? Then move on and figure out when to run with it and when to slow down. Move over to the conversation step, create a set of social viral spirals and get down to business.

Step 4 – Conversation
Listen. Talk back. Listen. Talk back. Listen. Talk…This is what a conversation is all about. We could actually call it interactivity. You create valuable content and then once you let it out in the open – listen and learn how to fine tune those spirals of yours.

(I’ve posted stuff before on the listening part and so have others – that’s of course crucial in this phase. Since neither me or them have posted a tip on Silverbakk then here it is.)

You should avoid creating to many spirals. They will only confuse you. But on the other hand if you got to few you might not hit the right spots. After all, segmentation has been around for ages and it’s not for the fun of it. Segmenting who and how to target your audience is essential.

Let’s move on and a have a look at the Social Tool Matrix.

2. What content goes where – Outline your tactical tools with a Social Tool Matrix

It’s all about structure, planning, organization and control (once you have something to say)

Don’t pick any tool out there for the fun of it and definitely don’t let one person in your organization handle them all. Every tool has it’s own advantages and should be treated that way.

Once you’ve passed the strategy and presence step in the Social Staircase it’s time to map which tools can do the work for you. It’s now time to create a Social Tool Matrix.

The Social Tool Matrix basically makes sure you and your organization analyze and choose a set of social tools that can deliver on strategy. While you’re entering stuff into the matrix you’ll be forced to answer the following questions:

What tools shall we use to fulfill our strategy?
Choose your tools carefully. Just because your competitor is riding the wave over at Facebook doesn’t mean you should. Look back at the social staircase. What strategy and what presence should you support?
Why should we use this tool?
Publish, interact, spread, buzz, images, video etc. Remember that sometimes you’ll be better off with more than one tool doing the same thing. Video for example. YouTube, Viddler and Vimeo are all about video but have different advantages.
Who should be responsible for the updates?
Don’t drop the entire load on top of a webmaster. Make sure your social marketing is spread out horizontally on your organization. The right person for the job huh?
What’s the naming / domain conventions?
I use ‘ronnestam’ everywhere I can. What’s your strategy? Think before you act and then keep track of it!
When can we say we’re successful?
This is a hard one. People that comment your blog posts. Diggs. Linkups. Facebook recommendations. Re-tweets. SEO effects. Actual sales. You pick your own index but make sure to pick a couple. Both qualitative and quantitative cause they’re both important.
Can we measure the return of investment (ROI)
If success was hard this is pretty darn impossible when it comes to social media. Some of you might say it’s not. But isolation of social media effects are hard. One of the few examples I know of is Dells Twitter outlet and that’s pretty unique.
What social spiral shall we use (this will be defined in the next stage)
You’re not here yet. But once you get to the next stage of this post. That’s when you decide on the social spirals. Every time you activate a tool. Remember what and what good it does. The Social Spirals will lead the way!
And whatever more you think should go into the matrix.
Last but not least. This post is inspirational – not an actual guide. You have to do your homework and your business might need a lot more inside the matrix than my actual example. Get it right and you shall succeed!

Once you got the social matrix mapped you and everyone in your organization is prepared to start the conversation it’s time for one last thing – the Social Viral Spirals.

3. Get viral with the Social Viral Spiral

Choose your tools wisely and start a conversation

Many of you have of course seen Brian Solis Social Conversation Prism.I love it too but it’s more of a wonderful image that maps all the possibilities with the social web than help for brands who are trying to figure out what to do and where to do it. Of course you can do everything and in some cases maybe you should. But what you really need once you’ve got an idea what you can do is a tactical tool.

I’ve created the The Social Viral Spiral for exactly that purpose. Use Brian Solis Prism and then translate the tools and services you need and create your own set of Social Flowers depending on what you are trying to achieve.

What the Social Spiral does is basically define where, what, how and when you should seed that content of yours into the social web. Triggering conversations online must start somewhere and then continue over a series of social networks and tools depending on what your purpose is. Marketing campaigns are in need of a lightning speed spread. Corporate information might not need that spread at all but still needs to go social due to SEO reasons for example.

A brand or company can have as many spirals as they want but I personally think you should aim for 3 or 4 depending on what kind of product and services your brand produce. The purpose of these spirals differ depending on a set of factors and you will probably have to adjust them over time.

Once you’ve got an idea on what kind of content and activities should be matched with a certain spiral you will surely have better chances in succeeding and most importantly you will have moved the knowledge about conversation from a specific employee to your organization!

Things that affect the intensity/speed of your spirals.

Type of content
Timezones
Time of actual publishing
Internet behavioral patterns
Where did you act the last time
Number of followers on Twitter
Number of friends in social networks
Amount of social networks where you intend to interact
How unique is the content you intend to promote
What brand do you represent?
Purpose – marketing, operations, news, etc…

Got that wired? Good. Then it’s all about creating that content and spin the wheel.

Right now you might have tons of open questions about this post OR it seems perfectly clear. I really don’t care which since I’ve gotta get this thing published before it consumes me.

Best of luck!