Innovative communication and advertising from Sweden with love
I have always been a great fan of Dyson. A company truly based on innovation. First famous for their vacuum cleaners they’ve now released a fan (updated) without any blades.
This video below shows people being confronted with the hairdryer for the first time and it’s a perfect example of true innovation and the consequences of it. When was the last time your product made people react like this?
{ 8 comments }
Today Google launched their latest resource called the Google Internet Stats. It contains industry facts and insights from across five different areas – Macro Economic Trends, Technology, Consumer Trends, Media Consumption and Media Landscape. This is a great resource for us who are trying to make people understand what the future is all about.
I bet that we can expect more in the near future. Anyway it’s a great little tool for people like me who want more ammo in the fight for change. Here’s a little something that gives you an idea about what to expect:
Ah, by the way. Thanks @stefanronge for waving your flag about this!
{ 2 comments }
This video showcasing what people believe to be an unknown lifeform of ET origin is spreading like wildfire on YouTube. More than 2 million hits since yesterday. As always we tend to spread classical myths grounded in life more than anything else.
I pray to god it’s not a viral campaign for Burger King and their latest ‘Have it your way’ campaign. That would be an all time low.
{ 4 comments }
I remember when I was about 5 years old, my parents had a Backgammon gaming board in our livingroom and I thought it was a beautiful pattern on top of it but I didn’t have the slightest idea how that game was played.
As I was browsing through the most viewed YouTube videos of the week I found this video showcasing the world first ‘Algalon the Observer’ kill on 25 man. It’s been viewed by almost 500 000 people already.
This World of Warcraft video is about 10 minutes long but you don’t have to spend more than a minute do understand that there’s a new generation growing up and don’t be surprised if you don’t understand shit about what makes them go wild. But rest assured. Understanding this new generation is what future communication, business development and branding is all about.
Every month more than 11 million kids, teens and grownups log on to World of Warcraft and fight against each other. That’s 2 million more than the entire population of Sweden. What’s stunning is the fact that games like these are played by 6 year olds today. Imagine their view on technology and communication. For them playing online together with other kids all over the world is not something new, cool or amazing. For them, tomorrow is today and they take it for granted.
Is your brand ready for them?
{ 3 comments }
Linus Omark, the 6th most viewed video on YouTube this week.
The 6th most viewed video worldwide on YouTube this week is a video showing Swedish hockey player Linus Omark, drafted 4th by the Edmonton Oilers, scoring in a friendly exhibition game against Switzerland.
Linus does what every innovator would do – he dares to do different.
And differentiation is what earns him fame.
If you’re into advertising, marketing or any kind of business for that sake you have so much to learn from this. Hell, if you’re looking to achieve anything there’s everything to learn.
In the end of the 80s I was privileged to be taken on as a member of the Swedish national snowboarding team. That’s when I first realized what differentiated the people who made the it in life and people who didn’t – the people in the team didn’t care what people thought of us, we did our own thing no matter what. I especially remember a snowboarding camp in Valfjället, a small ski resort (hill) in Värmland, Sweden. About 70-80 teens had gathered for a half pipe camp arranged by Greger Hagelin who later founded WE.
Me, years later piloting Greger Hagelin and WE co-founder David Hedman for a trip in a Piper PA-28 to Gotland.
It rained every day, yet early every morning before the lifts opened up a small group of us started to hike the pipe. Then once the lifts closed down that same group still hiked the pipe, the rain still poring down. Not much of a winter experience but for us it was all about passion. In that group we were all part of the national team or soon to be. The others practiced for an hour or two before getting pissed about the weather and leaving for the warm cabins. Once we got in later in the night we were told how stupid we were for staying out there all day soaking wet. We didn’t care.
If you wanna achieve something big. If you want your advertising or marketing activities to reach further. You’ve gotta do things differently and also be prepared to make a fool out of yourself. Don’t care what people will say if you fail. Get up and try again. Do your own thing.
So, when Linus, currently playing for Lulea HF, gets out on that ice and decides to try something he’s been practicing for hours, hours and more hours he feels sure of himself. He will win. However if he would have missed I’m sure he would have tried again.
Are you prepared to stick your nose out? Or do you play it safe?
{ 8 comments }
Candy brand Skittles have produced some kick ass TVC’s (Skittles leak being one of my favorites) through out the years and now they’re innovating the use of social media within fast moving consumer goods.
This blog post started in my head after seeing this discussion below between two of the bloggers I’m following. David Armano from Logic+Emotion and Jackie Huba with Church of the Customer Blog. They’re talking about Skittles and how they changed turned their entire website into a Twitter search for the keyword skittles. Jackie doesn’t like it, David does.
Skittles is of course not the first FMCG brand to do cool things online. Altoids has been rockin’ the web with cool content since about 2001. Jackie Huba mentions Jelly Belly and their content heavy site. The thing though with strategies like this is that you’re not taking advantage of the social crowd out there. Instead you’re constantly paying to pull traffic to your own site instead of placing yourselves where the customers are on their terms.
What’s really cool with all this to me is not the fact that Skittles is using Twitter but instead the little widget they’ve created that goes on top of whatever they want.
So, instead of building they’re on site or even mashup, they’ve created the ultimate mashup – a Skittles widget that navigates you directly to the respective channels online – Youtube for video, Twitter for chat, Facebook for friends, Flickr for photos and ultimately Wikipedia for product info.
This case is a simple yet cool explanation what you can do online today. I’m speaking quite often about the power of distributing your content outside of your own domains and this is a good example of it.
Sum up. Experimentation has to be a part of your communication. Sitting at home waiting for the ultimate strategy won’t work cause the net is ever changing!
Aloha!
{ 2 comments }
