TOP 10 BLOG POSTS ON FUTURE BRANDING AND COMMUNICATION FROM RONNESTAM.COM WITH LOVE

TOP 10 BLOG POSTS ON FUTURE BRANDING AND COMMUNICATION FROM RONNESTAM.COM WITH LOVE

TOP 10 BLOG POSTS ON
FUTURE BRANDING
AND COMMUNICATION
FROM RONNESTAM.COM WITH LOVE

A PDF, MashUp, Book or Whatever You Wanna Call It By Johan Ronnestam

TOP 10 BLOG POSTS ON
FUTURE BRANDING
AND COMMUNICATION FROM
RONNESTAM.COM

A PDF, MashUp, Book or Whatever You Wanna Call It By Johan Ronnestam

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Top 10 Blog Posts on Future Branding
and Communication From Ronnestam.com

A PDF, MashUp, Book or Whatever You
Wanna Call It By Johan Ronnestam

Stockholm, Sweden 2009 11 26

www.ronnestam.com
www.twitter.com/ronnestam
www.facebook.com/ronnestamBlog
www. ickr.com/ronnestam
www.slideshare.net/ronnestam
www.youtube.com/ronnestam

e writings from Blog of Ronnestam - Innovative Communication from Sweden with Love
by Johan Ronnestam is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Sweden License.
Based on a work at www.ronnestam.com.

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Foreword

I’ve always wanted to write a book. This is NOT it.

So far this year my blog have had more than 105 000 unique visitors and more
than 240 000 visits. I’ve written more than 500 blog posts covering everything
from design, gadgets, trends, technology, advertising, innovations, personal
things, branding and more. About 28% of the visitors during this last year have
ended up reading a post that was tagged with branding. Maybe that’s no
coincidence since besides trends and creativity I’d say branding is the subject that
is the most dearest to me.

When I’ve been looking deeper down into the stats I’ve seen that many of you
visitors haven't really explored my blog beyond the posts on the first page or the
actual post they came to read. This is why I thought it made sense to gather them
all like this - ‘Top 10 Blog Posts on Future Branding and Communication From
Ronnestam.com’

This has been the perfect opportunity for me to experiment with the production
process of a book since I’ve actually have put a big block in my calendar covering
January, February and march. If everything goes right I will present my ‘real’ book
sometime in April or May next year. And one things for sure - I’m doing it on my
own.

I’ve been pretty lazy since I haven’t bothered to edit any of the blog posts to fit
this format. In the end of this thing I have however listed all the links in case
you’re reading the paper edition.

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BLOG POST 1

ALL YOUR BRANDS ARE
BELONG TO US

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED OCTOBER 7, 2009 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/all-your-brands-are-belong-to-us/

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BLOG POST 1

All Your Brands Are Belong To Us
Last week I was contacted by Superbrands. The company that releases a book with
the same name. I was asked to write a post on their blog about Branding. I know
I've got some followers interested in that subject so I've decided to post the same
article here too.

Back in 2000 a flash based message containing the phrase ‘All your base are
belong to us’ spread like wildfire through emails and internet forums. Back then
most of you had probably not heard about viral marketing, web 2.0 and social
networks. Facebook and Twitter were still 6 years away from being established and
most brands didn’t bother to much about digital marketing.

About the same time Nike took their first stumbling steps towards a digital brand
strategy. Back then Nike would probably not know that their global strategy
would be a virally driven online content strategy but the first step taken with

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Nikefootball.com, that I personally took part in initiating, was a clear step in that
direction.

Now, 9 years later when the internet, web 2.0 and social media are well
established, Facebook has got +300 million members and Twitter is reckoned to
be one of the most important conversation platforms when it comes people driven
brand impact. I think we can all agree that the world has changed and so has
brand strategies although most companies don’t really get it yet.

So, the title ‘All your brands are belong to us’ has a double meaning cause back
then in 2000 when that wildfire started it also marked the day you lost control of
your brand. Today that fire is burning faster than ever and there’s really nothing
you can do to stop it except but getting used to being burned while fighting for
your lives.

It’s time to move. In order for you to continue to build your brand value in the
future you’ve gotta revamp your strategies and adapt them to the future of
communication.

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HERE ARE 10 STRATEGIES YOU’ VE GOT TO
ADAPT TO THE NEXT C OUPLE OF YEARS IF
YOU'RE PL ANNING FOR YOUR BRAND TO
STAY ON TOP!

1. FROM BRAND PROMISE TO BRAND
FULFILLMENT
You might have set out to deliver services and products that create some sort of
value for a large consumer base. All of your branding activities focus on telling
your story. What makes your brand unique, what’s your unique, emotional and
even archetype selling points. Shortly. What’s your brand promise?

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Now in a world where all information is accessible on the fly. Consumers share
experiences on comparison sites like Pricerunner, social networks like Facebook
and Twitter, Personal blogs and Getsatisfaction. People even post sites about
brands they like and dislike.

In this world there’s no more room for brand promises only brand fulfillment.
Honesty comes first. Do what you say and you shall be the one.

2. FROM OFFER TO INTERACTIVIT Y
If you’re one of those brands that still spend tons of time drawing up strategies on
how to approach the market with new offers, new products and services then
you’ll see your brand fall within the next couple of years.

Instead, learn from brands like Starbucks, Dell and not the least Zappos. These
brands have moved into the future of product development.

What Dell has done with Ideastorm.com and Starbucks with
Mystarbucksidea.com has not only turned their brand around but also enabled
them to deliver products and services they know their customers want. After all
they’re the one that have suggested them. Zappos strategy in moving from a shoe
store online to simply deliver better services, or ‘Power by Services’ as they say,
has earned them an unmatched loyalty. Zappos CEO Tony Hseih has got more
than 1.4 million followers on Twitter!

These brands understand they’re not owning a one way channel straight into the
heart of consumers. Love goes both ways!

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3. FROM C ONTROL TO TRANSPARENCY
About the same time that viral flash video was circling the web I also started a
website called Kaminsky.com. It was sort of an early version of YouTube but it
focused on movie trailers and advertising. However after only 8 month we had to
close the site down cause we were being threatened to be sued by Brindfors, at the
time one of Sweden's leading advertising agencies. Why? Well, the reason was
cause someone had uploaded a TV commercial Brindfors had created for
Scandinavian Airlines. Can you imagine something like this happen today?

In another example Pepsi gets a beating on Twitter by @christinelu for posting an
ad in German magazines.

When Pepsi pulls back their advertising immediately as a response to what
@christinelu Tweets it’s a clear sight these large brands have understood the
power of asynchron networks like Twitter where information spreads faster than
ever before.

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You simply cannot ignore conversations that regard your brand anymore.
Dominos Pizza obviously has taken this into account when they’re speeding up
the process of replying to a consumer called @interactiveamy on Twitter. Amy
Korin who had some problems with her Pizza Delivery earlier this year got
answered within 24 hours. A video apology from @Ramon_DeLeon quickly
solved the situation.

So where does your brand stand in all this? You ready for transparency or still
believe hiding information is the way to go? Do you know what people are saying
about your brand?

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4. FROM STABILIT Y TO ADAPTION
Open Source and democratization of technology is turning the world upside
down. The music and travel industry has already been hit bad. Traditional mobile
companies like Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola are all getting beaten by
Apple, Google and soon Microsoft. 3D printers is available today from $14.000.
Within 5 years time you’ll be able to print LEGO in your home for the cost of a
printed paper. If LEGO owns the 3D model or not remains to be seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg

When it comes to systems development we’re seeing tons of new applications and
webservices that are based on Open Source platforms. Wordpress for bloggers,
Joomla for communities, Magento for e-commerce and Drupal for overall site
building are only a few examples. PHP and MySQL is driving change in a speed
we’ve never seen before.

The brands of tomorrow will be all about adaption. So companies that turns
change into status Q are the brands that will live. Brands that spend their time

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protecting existing products will be passed by smaller, more agile and more
innovative brands. Brands that change will stand the test of times.

5. FROM MONOPOLY TO CREATIVE
EXECU TION
Nothing can be owned. The only competitive edge you’ll have in the future is
creative execution. Consumers of tomorrow might try out relations because of
monopoly. However, it’s a very risky position to take as we’ll be open to switch the
second a new player comes along. And as I stated above - the democratization of
technology will drive change, so staying ahead will be harder and harder. Instead
focus on building fans through your creative execution. How do you package your
products and services. How do you communicate. How do you entertain us. How
do you stay fun to be with. How can you make our day better. Focus on the values
that makes us talk about your brand - in a positive way.

6. FROM BRAND POSITIONING TO
PERCEIVED BRAND POSITIONING
Following transparency is our perceived view of your brand. This means when we
search for a brand, and that’s what +80% does before entering a relation with a
brand, our point of view is primarily based on what other people say about your
brand - not what you say.

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Brian Solis social flower. Is your Brand out there yet?

You can spend as many millions you want on positioning your brand through
traditional media. But if you don’t engage in conversations, provide us with
distributed marketing, content and applications your brand will be positioned
through the voices of millions of people online - and they’re not paid to position
your brand the way you want. They position you any way they like.

So. Start question if you really ought to spend all that money on traditional media
and instead think about moving it over to digital presence. Then we might do you
right!

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7. FROM PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TO FAN
BASED INNOVATIONS
Threadless.com. They’re selling T-shirts online. All T-shirts are made by their
visitors. Their selling like hell. Yamaha have already tried out fan based industrial
design. As we learned above Dell and Starbucks asks their fans - What shall we
do? And all of these brands do it in the open.

Reach out and deliver tools that let the fans you have create your future products
and services. Believe me - you’ll be amazed how many people are prepared to help
you.

8. FROM STRUCTURAL BINDINGS TO TRUST
Bankers and Telco’s all talk about how to structurally bind clients to their
products and services. What they’re saying is basically “Our product is so shitty so
once we’ve sold it we’ve gotta glue people to it, otherwise they’ll leave”.

Future brands are built on relations, trust and loyalty. If you do bad you deserve
bad. If you do good you’ll deserve good.

9. FROM MARKETING TO ENTERTAINMENT
Tick tock tick tock tick tock. Can you sense it. The pure thought of a time makes
people stressed. Time is the most precious thing we have and yet brands are
wasting it.

In a recent global study I was involved in we identified four factors that matters to
guys and girls in the age-span 18-25. The study was performed in so called style

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cities - New York, Rio De Janeiro, Stockholm, Berlin, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong
etc.

Innovation, entertainment, interactivity and creativity. The two that stood out the
most was entertainment and innovation. One kid said - “I’m bored so if I’m
supposed to choose a brand I choose the one that entertains me and ad something
to my life” A guy in Tokyo said - “If I’m supposed to show up with a pair of new
sneakers to school I’d like them to be different than anyone else's”

Your brand has to stay on it’s toes. If your into making cars you’re not only
competing with other car manufactures, you’re competing with time to. If I am to
interact with any kind of communication coming out from your company it better
live up my day. If not I’ll go somewhere else!

10. FROM CUSTOMERS TO FOLLOWERS
I’m not your customer. I’m temporarily following you. The second you show me
disrespect I’ll follow someone else. Cause change is only a click away. In the
pursuit for new customers Banks, Electricity Companies, Telcos, Car Dealers and
many more have all made switching brand easy. A phone call and the Bank take
care of the entire process.

However today we’re seeing this being moved over to digital. Head into
Compricer and compare your bank, insurance company or Telco provider and you
can change faster than your bank man says ‘Ho ho’.

In this world you have to start respecting your clients for what they are -
temporary followers that will stay on as long as their relation to you is good. The

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second it turns bad they’ll leave without saying good byes - case we all hate good
bye’s don’t we?

YOUR FU TURE BRAND VALUE THEN?
To sum this post up. What you’re looking at is a brand new world where
information flows free. Whatever you do will become transparent. You’re loosing
the competitive edge based on physical innovations and ideas, intelligence and
innovation will prosper. Loyalty is no longer based on structural bindings and
price. The consumer of tomorrow values sustainability, freedom of choice and
humbleness.

What ever you do, you can expect a global competitor that can deliver their
products and services from anywhere in the world. Personally I use a computer I
bought from the states. My mobile was bought in Hong Kong. My software's are
all bought online from abroad. My backup service is located in the States. Hell,
even my notebook was ordered from abroad.

Brands that can translate these changes in how people consume information are
the winners. Brands that try to protect what they have, not opening up and
milking every last penny out of that old cow of yours will be the losers.

If you don’t adapt - All your brands are belong to us!

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BLOG POST 2

IF YOU WANNA GET
SOME BRAND LOVE
TOMORROW YOU
BETTER GET INTO THE
CONVERSATION TODAY

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED OCTOBER 7, 2009 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/if-you-wanna-get-some-brand-love-tomorrow-
you-better-get-into-the-conversation-today/

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BLOG POST 2

If you wanna get some brand love
tomorrow you better get into the
conversation today
Branding today is about creating a brand platform, then dramatize it and start
screaming to people - COME ON AND BUY MY PRODUCT. IT’S GREAT. Of
course in a slightly creative and modest manner than that. But it very often about
traditional advertising in classic media channels.

Branding of tomorrow is about knowing who you are, what your brand stands for
and start experimenting with innovation, partnerships, entertainment and above
all involving your potential audience as a part of your product development.

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And note - call them audience, cause the will pay to stay but leave if they don’t
like the show.

It’s all about constantly innovating your brand and then making sure you know
what people think of your work. Do they like it? Do they hate it. What do they
miss, what would they do differently. Speak to them. Learn their language. Once
you think you know the formula to success - erase your brain and start all over
again. We do not want repetition from brands that lead we want the new stuff, the
shit that makes us go wow!

The first step to keeping on top of your game is getting into the conversation.
There’s no need to wait even if people aren’t talking about your brand just yet. Get
in there and learn!

FIRST STEP - AU TOMIZE YOUR
INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION
The key to becoming successful when becoming a brand conversationist is to
know...yep, you guessed it, where people who talk about your brand are hanging.
Put your ears to the rail and listen for. And remember that most of these things
you can output as a RSS feed into Google Reader or Netvibes. Built a dashboard!

1. Google alerts

2. Twingly blogsearch

3. Twingly microblog search

4. Get Satisfaction

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5. Co-comment, Backtype, Intense debate

6. Google analytics

7. Have a mint

More statistics...you can never get to much!

The 59 services you can currently keep track of using Friendfeed.

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GET INTO THE DISCUSSION
Once you know where people are discussing your products, your brand or
anything else related to your mission (cause you have one of those huh). These are
the tools you should get accompanied with.

1. Twitter & tweetdeck

2. Bloggy

3. Brightkite

4. Jaiku (still not dead)

5. Messenger

6. Friendfeed

7. Co-comment, Backtype, Intense debate

And don't forget to get into blogs and comment on subjects relevant to you!

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SPREAD YOUR DIGITAL PRESENCE
Getting into the conversation is not only about spying on others and then going
after the buzz. Your digital presence - website, campaigns, digital events,
groups...everything has to go beyond their own sphere and servers. In order to do
this you’ve gotta start spreading your information socially. There’s tons of tools
but a first must have are these.

1. The god of spreading content - SEO (Note, not paid search)

2. Ping.fm

3. RPC all content that you write to leading aggregators and mashups on
your local market.

4. Send images to leading photo sites like Flickr and Picasa

5. Send videos to leading Video sites like YouTube, Blip, Vimeo and others
(See earlier post on this)

6. Socially share things with Share This

7. Connect your RSS feeds to Twitter, Jaiku, Bloggy, Friendfeed and other
social plattforms.

8. Constantly create playlists that are killer in your office and spread them
on Last.FM and Spotify

9. Post book marks on Delicious

10. Pixelpipe

11. Tarpipe

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12. Feedburner

13. Widgets

14. Facebook groups (and others)

15. Wikipedia if possible

And more and more and more and more. This goes on forever. But you’ve gotta be
everywhere!

Last but not least! Create advertising and communication that matters to people.
We want to have fun - as I said earlier this year. You’ve gotta be a clown!

Ok, that’s it for now. I’m aware that I’ve left a couple of question marks in the
heads of you guys who don’t know what RPC, RSS etc is. But I don’t have the time
to elaborate on that now. I’ll get back to it soon :)

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BLOG POST 3

DEAR CEO’S, BOARD
MEMBERS AND TOP
MANAGEMENT –
WHAT’S MORE
IMPORTANT? WINE OR
CHANGE?

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED SEPTEMBER 26, 2009 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/dear-ceo-board-member-top-management-
change-communication-branding/

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BLOG POST 3

Dear CEO’s, Board Members and
Top Management – what’s more
important? Wine or Change?
This post is probably most stupid post one can write since CEO’s and board
members seems to have decided to stay behind with the dinosaurs while the rest
of us look for new ground where we can thrive and prosper. Basically on average
they read three local newspapers of their own choice, Wall Street Journal, Time
Magazine and watch a couple of TV channels. They haven’t got a clue about blogs,
feed readers and social networks. But I’ll give it a go anyway.

Dear CEO and board member. In most cases you're probably +40 years old. You
have a wife, two kids and live in a house that cost above average. Two cars in the
garage and a country-side home. You spend weekends together with other CEO’s
and board members in order to secure your position in the hierarchical ladder of

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success (or at least what you define as a success). Vacations are chosen based on
where you’re supposed to be rather than where you would like to go.

Or as Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and chief executive officer (obviously an
exception) of WPP puts it 13 minutes into this very insightful video:

"Clients, media ow ners and agencies tend to be r un by older people.
The y've got to the top of companies. Change i s the last thing the y're really
interested in. You want a quiet life, travel around the world and making
sure e ver y thing i s ok"

It's your life we're talking about and I understand you don’t want to rock the boat.
That could of course lead to you having to sell your boat, spend your vacation in
another place and replace some of those expensive wine bottles of yours with
cheaper ones. So sitting tight along with the rest and not challenge the
establishment is probably the right thing to do. After all, in 10-20 years there’s
another generation coming along - let them change things.

No! Nee! ????! Ne! Ei! ?! Nein! ??! Nei! Nej!

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There is no time for that! You have to start changing things now before your
company gets run over by a couple of teenagers sitting in a coffee shop disrupting
your business. (Not that I don't love that idea). The world is in a state of change.
Companies and brands all over the world are falling behind due to slow
leadership.

Since I'm trying to not to be one of those persons who's all about yelling I'd also
like to provide you with a couple of guidelines you may wanna follow:

EVERY C OMPANY CAN AND SHOULD
BEC OME AN E-BUSINESS.

Make everyone in your company think, eat, shit the E. That’s how the military
would have said it. And it suits this post pretty good. The digital world turn
things upside down in a way we’ve never seen before so you’ve gotta make sure
everyone is on the boat.

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A common problem is that a few people in the marketing department might have
a clue about what goes on. But, without support from you - the board of directors,
the CEO, CTO and CFO they're screwed. Far too many companies sees the
internet as yet another business area. But the internet does in fact change every
little bit of your company.

The internet cuts horizontally through every part of your business so your future
marketing and communication strategy has to do the same.

C OMMUNICATION OF TOMORROW IS
NOT ABOU T NEW FORMATS OR CHANNELS
IT ’ S ABOU T A WHOLE NEW WAY OF
THINKING ABOU T YOUR BUSINESS.
This new digital order calls for a totally new way of thinking and I don’t believe
many traditional advertising agencies know shit about it. The fault is not really
theirs, it's yours. You have to integrate marketing into your product development.
On top of that you have to make sure that marketing competence knows all about
digital and traditional marketing cause the problem is more complex that dividing
things into digital and traditional advertising.

Today we have categorized consultants into categories - Advertising, Internet
consultants, PR, Event, Mobile, Direct Marketing, Guerrilla and so on. Tomorrow
you will have to get all of those brains into a single one. Of course, your
Advertising agency might suggest you put together some sort of workshop with
people from each category - THIS IS WRONG.

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The problem with such a setup is that it's a compromise. You can never reach a
satisfactory result by having a lead agency that knows traditional communication
and then a group of other consultants. You simply have to get it all into one brain
cause that single advertising idea has to take every category into account when
you develop and launch ideas.

Look at Garmin for example. They develop among other things GPS running
watches. The watch syncs my runs via Bluetooth with an online community that
shows me where I've been running on a Google map.

My information is then automatically uploaded to Facebook so that I can share
my training data with friends.

Is this social advertising, a product, service or crm?

Ask yourselves - What is marketing, what is product and what is business
development.

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I’d say It's all tied together in a way we've never seen before and most of you
CEO's, board members and top management don't get the full picture.

Of course Garmin advertise their products today, but tomorrow they might rely
on viral traffic from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks that is more or
less injected into their entire business.

The future mix of communication and advertising is so tied together with
business and product development so in order for us communication consultants
to deliver a work well done and on brief we have to get new kind of briefs with
new kind of objectives. Communication and advertising has to move up the
ladder and we have to look beyond advertising. Instead we have to rethink how
companies develop and launch products, how companies are organized in order to
sell, how the people in a company can be more involved on every level and how a
CEO can learn what the digital world can do for his company.

So, integrate advertising, marketing and communication straight into your
business development. And if you as a CEO don't understand these different
formats you've got nothing there to do!

I call for a new category - let’s call it entrepreneurial advertising. An entrepreneur
would never go on with any kind of communication that didn't deliver. It's time
for you to care about your company in that way too!

You might wanna head back and read one of my older posts: 'Seduce us or excuse
us – 11 ways to bring your brand up to date' that broadens my point of view even
further.

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WHAT ’ S YOUR BUSINESS D OING THERE
WHEN IT SHOULD BE HERE

We are out there waiting but we're not only in
front of the TV anymore.
Think about your business. You’ve probably got tons of content waiting to be
spread. Catalogues, photos, movies, texts, ads, business systems and so on. Well,
what are you waiting for? Put it out there. And out there doesn’t mean you should
publish it on your own platforms or one that matches your own ideals. Let it
loose.

A common mistake is choosing between different social platforms. People ask me
- “If I am to publish video online, should I choose YouTube or Vimeo?” I
answer every time - “Choose them all!” There is no cost involved. People spend
time on different sites. And the more content you have out there, the more traffic
you’ll get in return. If you spread content on outside platforms you will in the end
receive traffic back to your brand in one way or another. If it’s done by the book it
will do wonders for your SEO work.

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In order to get the best possible performance from your products and services.
Think about what you can do best and work your ass off in order to make your
brand the nr 1 source for people enjoying your product category. If you’re in the
business of building cars, think, do you build cars for transportation, for fun or
for some other purpose. If you think it’s about transportation. Let’s say families.
Then do everything in your power to become the brand that makes transportation
more efficient, more safe and more fun.

The conversation prism by Brian Solis

So, think about how you can distribute your brand all over the digital world the
same way you distribute it in the offline world. The only difference is that
distribution online is for free once you've turned your content production and
communication process around.

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C ONNECT NOT C OLLECT
People don’t want to connect to your products or services. They wanna connect to
values, beliefs, emotions, passion and personality. Like when I wrote about Telco's
earlier this year: "We are in the entertainment business - let's act as such".

The brands that invite people to a conversation, listen to them, show them respect
and show that they value people for being people and not potential money - those
brands will be the winners.

CREATIVE EXCELLENCE
I'm not gonna write about this one again since I've outline it a post before. But I
suggest you read that one once you're done reading this post.

GET YOUR OWN FAN CLUB
In order for your business to be virally spread. Get fans and let them break the
rule.
A problem today is that most things spreading like wildfire on the net tend to
break a couple of rules. As a legal business you have a disadvantage against the
everyday consumer. However, if you get the everyday consumer on board, let him
or her do the dirty work. If they like you they’ll be more than happy to stand on
the barricades.

Have a look at Zappos for example. Their CEO has got 1,356,038 followers on
Twitter! How many have you got?

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Get all your employees on board or actually off board. Seriously, if your employees
are reachable with land lines or email. Then why shouldn't I be able to follow
them on twitter or become friends with them on Facebook?

THE MEDIA 180° TURN
Yesterday - we all got communicated to when we were in front of the TV or
reading a magazine at a certain time on a certain day. This meant brands had to
spend quite a lot of time and money to hit a consumer with their message.

Tomorrow - your message must be on 24/7 standby so that when your potential
target searches for whatever you’re selling you hit that consumer one time - and
that time you’ve gotta hit on your first shot. Everything that stands in your way
will lead to a misfire.

Read all the news not only the filtered stuff

I opened up this post with critique pointed towards the fact that most people read
only a few sources of information on a daily basis. That was all ok when leading
media companies still had monopoly on information. However today most news
you read in for example Wall Street Journal has already been out there for a
couple of days and the diversity is not broad enough. That's what you've gotta
create your own customized news desk based on what you need to know in order
to run your company. I would say you have to move from reading 5-10 sources to
50-100 a day.

Last year I tipped about my own source of information - tons of RSS feeds read
through Netvibes that I also use to track my brand. Why not start by following

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some of the channels I personally follow and then slowly remodel that interface to
fit your own needs. Read the post I wrote about it for more information.

TO SUM THINGS UP!
As always there's tons of more things to do. But that would require me to write a
book and there's just not enough time to do that this weekend. Sooner or later I'll
publish that one as well and then I promise I'll give each and every board member
of a Swedish listed company a copy for free!

Finally before I end this post I'd also recommend you to browse through this
presentation that I held last week about 10 trends on future communication. It
might light up the path for you even more.

See you on the other side!

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BLOG POST 4

LET’S START A
REVOLUTION - GET OF
THE BOAT AND BUILD
YOURSELVES A NEW
BRAND
TRANSPORTATION
SYSTEM.

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED FEBRUARY 18, 2009 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/let’s-start-a-revolution-get-of-the-boat-and-build-
yourselves-a-new-brand-transportation-system/

41

BLOG POST 4

Let’s start a revolution - get of the
boat and build yourselves a new
brand transportation system.
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

42

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

43

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?

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• 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!

45

BLOG POST 5

CONTROLLING YOUR
BRAND WITH CREATIVE
EXCELLENCE

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED FEBRUARY 1, 2009 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/controlling-your-brand-with-creative-excellence/

47

BLOG POST 5

Controlling your brand
with creative excellence
Who is heading your brand? Does he or she have an understanding for all, and I
mean all, steps in the consumer interaction with your brand.

The new generation of consumers crave 4 things from their favorite brands. These
4 things was something we found in a global focus group study we did for one of
the global brands I’ve worked with. Teens and youngsters between 15 and 25 years
old were interviewed in leading style cities like New York, London, Rio de Janeiro,
Paris, Stockholm, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing, Amsterdam,
Berlin and even more cities that I cannot remember.

48

The 4 things were:

• Innovation

• Creative excellence

• Entertainment

• Interaction.

They crave it everywhere in every step of their contact with you brand. Total
integration equals success.

Hyper jump the process back and fourth
Most brands tend to start a brand platform project that ultimately leads to
developing your brand first, then collateral's, brand guidelines and finally they
look at the products and services. New brands and super brands - they look at the
brand heritage, what’s your story, where do you come from etc, but more
important, where are they heading. Based on this knowledge they move over to
the products and services and design these. The it’s time to move back to the rest.

You shouldn’t let a brand or brand guidebook lead your product development
cause it’s usually stiff books filled with rules what NOT to do. When the first rule
you have to learn about communication is WHAT rules can we brake!

Total integration demands total creativity
In order for your brand to achieve this level of integration that your target are
asking for, you have to get a partner on board that can act as your creative style
police through your entire process. The challenge for all modern brands is to stay
in control or at least have someone from A to Z that make sure you do.

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LET ’ S LO OK AT APPLE.
Steve Jobs and his way of totally controlling Apple is probably the best example
there is. What’s stunning with Apple is exactly the way they tend to value ever
single step of consumer contacts as the most important part in the company.
Nothing, and I mean nothing is left behind. Of course I don’t know their entire
chain of customer contacts. But let’s look at one possible chain and how they’ve
designed it.

My name is Bill. I’m looking for a new computer and I’ve heard about Apple. This
might be my road from a non believer to a brand fanatic.

1. TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING
TV commercials

Apple vs PC has become an icon in the US when it comes to harass your
competitors in open public. Apart from that it’s totally on brand in terms of tone
of voice and simplicity.

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Print

With the strong products Apple has, there’s usually no need to create a story
beyond your own brand values and product. This is the ultimate example why
communication and creativity should be a very integrated part of engineering.
Most technology companies develop technology first and then comes the
packaging and design. Apple integrates the two and on top of that, would never
develop anything without having communication experts involved in the process.

With iTunes it's different. This product is available on both Mac and PC.

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You can also use iTunes to shop for new music even if you end up playing it on a
another Mp3 player. This requires a different strategy.

2. PR & EVENTS

No one can have missed the fact that the Apple company is quiet as a mouse. A
couple times a year, Steve Jobs launches Apples latest products during the Mac
World. The keynote he delivers on those days are followed by millions. Every day

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between is filled with rumors and ideas on what the next Mac World will bring. A
great PR strategy that doesn't only keep interest up but also keeps prices from
falling. Due to the illness of Steve Jobs the future of the Macworld seems
uncertain though.

3. PHOTO GRAPHY

Where ever I see an Apple product I'm stunned with the quality and ingenuity of
the photography. Look at this image above - the balance and the creativity with a
yet simple set up. That mirror effect that points towards the next lying down
iTouch is just fabulous.

53

You seldom see a photo from Apple that doesn't both show the product and
communicate a functionality or a USP.4. Online banners

Yet another area where Apple innovates.

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5. ONLINE CAMPAIGN SITE

Why would you do a campaign site when you can turn your entire website into an
emotional experience. I’d say Apples section where they talk about partners and
other people who use their products serves as a great campaign area.

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6. PARTNERSHIPS

What do we love more than a great brand? Answer = Two great brands! Nike+ is
the perfect example of this. It drives sales for both Apple and Nike but above all
contributes to positioning them both as cool innovators.

Leading car brands all over the worlds has implemented support for the iPod in
their latest car models. In this case I’m sure it benefits them more than Apple.

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7. WEBSITE
The Apple website is definitely one of the best corporate websites in the world. It's
user friendly, well designed, great functionality, no loading times, non CMS
templated design and on brand.

I just love how they’ve first and foremost have developed their site based on what
consumers want and need.

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Many of the pages looks more like a very nice printed magazine than a website.

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This proves that someone at Apple understood that websites are not supposed to
be built based on the specs of a content management system but instead the specs
of your customer needs.

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8. ON- AND OFFLINE STORE

Apple knows how to create a brand drama. Their latest store on Manhattan shows
Apple never rests. And if you continue to look at more of their stores they're
continuously updating themselves. I wrote last year about the London experience.

The actual shopping experience is something else. I wrote about that a long time
ago so I won't repeat myself. But it's like nothing else, I'll promise you that.

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When it comes to the online shopping experience. The Apple.com site is nicely
integrated with their online store.

Once in the store, it's all about usability and effectiveness - just as it should be.

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9. PACKAGING

I’ve bought quite many Apple products and every time I open the package it’s an
experience. No brand, and I mean NO brand has the consistency Apple has had in
innovating how they package their product. What’s stunning is also the fact that
lots of stuff inside that box you're opening is directly integrated with software
interfaces and computer materials. The experience to use a mac starts with
carrying home the package.

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10. PRODUCT

Do I need to say anything?

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11. INSIDE THE ACTUAL PRODUCT

If you get your hands on a Mac that needs to be opened for any reason. Take the
opportunity and do so. Cause these guys know that reputation starts from
everywhere in the consumer chain - including the 0.1% who ever open a
computer. Inside it’s incredible well designed and the G5 is even backlit inside!

12. OPERATIVE SYSTEM
Awarded design. Usability is better than everything else on the market. It's faster
and yet more stabile and works both for Mac or PC.

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The number of innovative solutions in the way you interact with software and the
operative system are amazing.

13. PRODUCT & SOFT WARE INTERFACE

The total integration between softwares and the interface is great. But what’s even
cooler is that some of the latest products like iWork even stretches outside the
actual software.

iWork for example has a full screen editing mode where it actually seems like the
latest Macbook Pro has been redesign to be integrated with that functionality.

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14. SUPPORT
Crowd sourcing, find whatever you need, integration into every computer and
software. Awarded - yes.

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TO SUM UP.
The reason behind Apple success is of course innovation first and foremost.
Without brains like Steve Jobs on board the company would be jack shit. But
without Steve’s way of leading the brand - bringing on people like Lee Clow and
more of the best creative brains in the industry, having them helping him
controlling every bit of the brand from first contact to final kill - is the key to
success.

Mike Loop with Apple says it best:

“ The core dilemma for talented desig ners in any f ield i s thi s: If you str ive
for g reatness in your desig n, you w ill meet resi stance; if you str ive to avoid
resi stance, you can't do g reat desig n. D ifferent i s s car y. Great desig n has
to f ig ht w ith the idea that many s ee "better" as meaning "more of the
s ame". The better your work and the hig her your standard s, the more
you'll have to f ig ht against the urge to stay w ithin the war m, s afe conf ines
of mediocr it y”

Are you ready? Be prepared, cause you’ll step on a lot of toes. But the reward
might be worth it cause you'll end up with consumer like these.

A FINAL WORD
Making a vision like this come alive means that a very small group has to control
many steps. But on the other hand, being the best in the world has never been
about doing as other people say, it’s always been about going your own way,
towards your vision no matter what!

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BLOG POST 6

SEDUCE US OR EXCUSE US
– 11 WAYS TO BRING YOUR
BRAND UP TO DATE

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED AUGUST 25, 2009 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/seduce-us-or-excuse-us-11-ways-to-bring-your-
brand-up-to-date/

69

BLOG POST 6

Seduce us or excuse us – 11 ways to
bring your brand up to date
We’re fed up with boring old school advertising. We don’t want your information
and rational explanations. We wanna dance, laugh, feel and love. We do not want
be treated like idiots!

Information is all over us. We’re accessing it everywhere faster than ever. The
more shit we get our hands on the less we wanna mess with, so you’ve gotta stand
out.

Future brands don’t buy media they create brand dramas that build value and
generate SEO equity - only then will you reach your future friends (aka. target
group). Future brands tell stories. Future brands rely on drama and constant
innovation - totally integrated.

Here are eleven bullets of love that you can load that brand gun of yours with: (or
a crash course in modern branding)

1. SO CIAL CURRENCY
As social networks spread all over the world the opportunity to spread your brand
globally is bigger than ever. What you’ve gotta do is get your head around your
own brand values and think hard...think harder than ever before...what - can - you
- give - to - me - that - builds - ME - among my peers. Yes. You heard right. You’ve
gotta turn your mind around. It’s not about you winning. It’s not about you getting
things. Give and you shall receive. After all, we’re only humans deriving straight

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from a slimy fish or something. We only wanna fit in. And your brand can help us
do that.

2. CREATIVE EXCELLENCE
People around the world are savvy. We’re accessing information from all around
the world on the fly. We’re evaluating it on the fly. There’s no room for flaws. Get
your business right when it comes to design, ideas and creativity. Only then will
we support you! If you need some advice - talk to Mr Steve Jobs.

3. VALUE
You might trick us into falling in love with you. But in order for us to stay married
you’ve gotta give us value for our money. A well known brand had a problem with
too many calls to their call center. People complained about their products. This
had led to a meeting where the management team were discussing how to develop
the call center so that they could serve more people. A friend of mine were in the
room and said “Why don’t you make your products better instead” - bang on
target. Tomorrow there’s no room for errors. You’ll end up in price comparison
engines, your page rank will drop or at least be associated with the wrong things,
you’ll have protest groups on Facebook etc. Provide us with a true value and we’ll
stay in love.

4. OPEN SOURCE
If you’re looking to race against the best you’ve gotta drop your pit stop times.
With this blurry talk I mean - don’t get stuck in a big ass back-end system that

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won’t let you change things fast and cheap. Go open source as soon as possible.
Drop everything else and run for it!

5. KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE BET TER
THAN YOU KNOW YOUR MOTHER IN L AW
We’re not runners anymore. We’re not car lovers any more. We’re not mac fans any
more. We’re not Nike lovers. We’re not adidas lovers. We’re everything! We want to
be the best in everything we do. We don’t settle for less.

6. JOIN THE C ONVERSATION
Your brand is out there - everywhere. And you’ve gotta do your best to be part of
it. Did you hear that - be part of your own brand. I mean it.

The blue dot is your brand!

Your brand is no longer built primarily on what you tell people about it. It’s built
upon what other people say about it. Given that's a truth I think it's time for you
to step into the crowd and start listening. Note - start listening!

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7. LINKONOMY

Page rank - the one formula you should learn in school

This one is simple. As long as Google rules the empire - make sure people link to
your site, your content and your domain. There’s no other way you’ll be seen.
Ah...you probably have to link to them too ;)

[updated]

@deeped commented that page rank is not all that simple to explain to companies.
That's not really my intention. But it's a great point though. The guys over at
SEOmoz, the best site on SEO, posts a great piece called Search Engine Ranking
every two years. The survey includes the Top 5 Ranking Factors, the Top 5
Negative Ranking Factors, the Top 5 Most Contentious Factors and the Overall
Ranking Algorithm. It's a must read.

This year the Top 5 Ranking Factors were:

• Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links
73% very high importance

• External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)

• Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)

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• Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag

• Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted
Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)

Head over to SEOmoz to read the full survey.

[end of update]

8. USABILIT Y
Curiosity used to make us ask for directions but not anymore. No matter if we’re
talking online usability or how to direct people in a subway - lead us to the good
shit now! Loading times no! Confusion no! Simplicity yes! Hospitality yes!

9. KICK LUCIFER OU T OF THE BASEMENT
AND TRADE YOUR MEDIA MONEY FOR
C ONTENT
If you lead a large brand you probably have one budget in your safe. Then a
couple of hundred meters down in hell you’ve got a big bag of media budgets
waiting to be blown up. Ever thought about what that money can do for your
brand online if you build things by the book (seo book that is)? Cut your media
money by half and move that half over to the equity side of your marketing mix -
online content. Built right, written right and distributed over the right social
networks it will do ten times more for your brand than any 30 second commercial
will ever do.

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10. MAKE US L AUGH
Is there anything better than a refreshing laughter? It’s a trip. It’s a drug. It makes
us fall in love. Never ever forget that. If you’re a CEO or a Marketing Director
representing a brand that creates boring, no good, sleep 'pilling', price fighting
commercials. Report yourselves to the next mission to Mars - cause we don’t want
you on our beautiful planet!

11. FINALLY DROP THE FOLLOWING WORD
FROM YOUR VO CABUL ARY:
Control. You don’t need it and you can’t have it.

See you out there!

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BLOG POST 7

GET YOUR CLOWN SUIT
READY IF YOU WANNA
REACH OUT TO
CONSUMERS IN 2009

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 2, 2009 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/get-your-clown-suit-ready-if-you-wanna-reach-
out-to-consumers-in-2009/

77

BLOG POST 7

Get your clown suit ready
if you wanna reach out to
consumers in 2009

Sony knows how to make you smile when they’re pushing Playstation 3

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.

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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.

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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.

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• 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.

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BLOG POST 8

WWRD - 36 THINGS
RONNESTAM WOULD DO
DIFFERENTLY IF HE HAD
CONTROL OF BRAND THAT
DELIVERED BROADBAND,
TELECOM AND TELEVISION
SERVICES

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED MARCH 4, 2009 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/wwrd-36-things-ronnestam-would-do-differently-
if-he-had-control-of-brand-that-delivered-broadband-telecom-and-television-
services/

83

BLOG POST 8

WWRD - 36 things
Ronnestam would do differently if
he had control of brand that
delivered broadband, telecom and
television services

I am sitting on a plane between Chicago and Hawaii reading Jeff Jarvis book
'What Would Google Do, WWGD'. (after seeing a recommendation on Daytona’s
site). This got in me in the mood to write a blog post that gives you my point of
view what the big triple play telcos should do differently if I were to decide.

Comcast, Orange, RoadRunner, Telia, Comhem and all of the other telco that got
their triple play services wired. These are all brands that got the consumers wired.
They’re selling telecom, broadband and TV. However, very few of these brands got
future marketing covered. They’re all stuck in history and outspending one

84

another in traditional marketing, much to the joy of traditional advertising
agencies that doesn’t do shit for them.

If you are among the top spenders in your country you can be sure that you’re
being ‘recalled’. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the advertising you’re
broadcasting.

After having worked with some of them and since that time my wet dream has
always been to get control of their total budgets. The big telco’s has everything you
need in your product portfolio when it comes to modernizing communication.
But on the downside they have the most traditional set up and their management
people seems to be born before the dinosaurs vanished from the face of the earth.

So, here are 36 things that Ronnestam would do if we had control of a telco brand

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'WHAT WOULD RONNESTAM D O' ›› TELC OS.
1. The first thing I would state would be - We are in the entertaining
business, let's act as such!

2. The second thing I would state is - We need to try new things, fail, fail
again. But we need to learn and change.

3. I would force my brand to mentally go from selling products & services to
sharing knowledge that was relevant from a communication perspective.

4. I would build a network of marketeers including people from Facebook,
Nike, Apple, Dior, Porsche, WE, Bollywood etc. We would meet once
every 3 month somewhere exotic and change ideas.

5. Our IT department would not be allowed to control anything that had
something to do with communication. No more building interfaces on
already decided technology. Technology should be build on interfaces that
connects us with the consumer.

6. We would launch social press rooms much like the one Electrolux has.

7. The CEO of the company would have to treat social media better than he
treats the finance market.

8. I wouldn’t have a marketing director on board that first and foremost
didn’t understand what digital communication is all about.

9. I’d force the board of directors and the management team to look at Kevin
Kelly’s 5000 days at Ted.

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10. I’d make our company place a new communications guru like Seth Godin
or Jeff Jarvis on the board and I would demand to be placed in the
management group of the company.

11. Our customer service would be educated in social media and networks.
Once they’re up and running I would rename them to customer friendlies.

12. I would compete with Hulu.com

13. I would compete with Google Docs & Gmail

14. I would compete with Rebtel & Skype

15. I would compete with Dropbox

16. I would compete with iTunes

17. Our start page would the entry to the tools we provide to our customers,
not a portal where we sell stuff.

18. The brand I worked for would develop offline products and services that
were connected to social networks.

19. At least 50% of the media budget (probably more) would go into creating
an online presence where we offered people, small and large business help
on how to use communication services to be more efficient, keep contact
with friends and family and evolve as human beings.

20. I would make sure ever single piece of information on our own sites were
searchable for bots.

21. I would have both management and people ‘on the floor’ blog on our sites

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22. I would create a video driven help section that solved most problems
people have (based on social interaction) with computers and mobiles. All
videos would of course be found on YouTube, Vimeo, Blip etc etc.

23. I would focus on creating a presence everywhere online not a presence on
our own website

24. Search optimization would be considered in everything we do. Even the
naming of products.

25. Statistics manager would be strategic competence who would report to the
board on a weekly basis. Every activity in the company should be taken
from a statistics point of view.

26. We would monitor social networks, we would interact with them and we
would listen to what they had to say.

27. I would initiate crowd sourced support. Probably through Get Satisfaction
or similar.

28. I would implement open source in every possible place.

29. I would have our management team chat with customers via Bambuser
once a month. They should be on Twitter on a daily basis.

30. We would not do press releases but instead do events where bloggers
would be treated as bloggers. This means we’re putting on a show and
people can download the material in whatever format they like.

31. We would offer all our own produced content to be distributed under
Creative Commons agreements.

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32. We would aim to set a profitability target for the company. Anything
above that would be given to organizations and partners that supported
our sustainability policy.

33. We would aim to cut the costs on every service we have.

34. Every marketing activity would initiate a process that generates
automatized effects in social networks.

35. Our invoicing would include an up time quality index. If our services
would not have met our goals our consumers would not pay 100% of their
bills.

36. To interact with our company would be consider fun and entertaining.

37. So, there we are. Some thoughts on how to change the world of telecom.
But why 36? Don’t know, i sort of felt it was time to press publish.

Ah, and I heard a great quote in a movie (that I can’t remember the name of )
on the plane:

“L et’s focu s where you end up. Not where you are and were”

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BLOG POST 9

WHY SAAB, VOLVO, FORD, BMW,
VOLKSWAGEN, MERCEDES, PEUGEOT,
AUDI, CHEVROLET, BUICK AND THE
REST OF THE CAR INDUSTRY SHOULD
THE ADOPT THE IPHONE MODEL AND
DEVELOP THE INCAR OS

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED SEPTEMBER 8, 2009 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/why-saab-volvo-ford-bmw-volkswagen-
mercedes-peugeot-audi-chevrolet-buick-and-the-rest-of-the-car-industry-
should-the-adopt-the-iphone-model-and-develop-the-incar-os/

91

BLOG POST 8

Why SAAB, Volvo, Ford, BMW,
Volkswagen, Mercedes, Peugeot,
AUDI, Chevrolet, Buick and the rest
of the car industry should the adopt
the iPhone model and develop the
InCar OS
For years I’ve thinking about this post but it has seemed so obvious so I didn’t
bother writing it. But nothing happens so it’s time to put my thoughts down in
writing and give one of my business ideas away.

The unexplored room of business development

The car industry has access to a very unique thing. 4 seats where people have
different needs depending on age, sex, where you come from and where you’re

92

heading. All of this in a small contained area that today is pretty boring and
unexplored.

What if the car industry decided to start a company together, sort of a foundation
like the mobile world has launched Symbian, that developed a new operative
system optimized for cars. What would be the specs and how could it benefit the
car brands.

The benefits would be enormous. Let’s brainstorm for a couple of minutes:

MAXIMUM C ONNECTIVIT Y WITH USB,
FIREWIRE, SD CARD SLOT AND BLUETO OTH
AC CESSIBILIT Y AND WIFI & WIRELESS 3G
BROADBAND C ONNECTION.

It’s pretty obvious. Getting internet into the car would not only enable me to
download apps, stream videos, listen to internet radio and play online games but
it would also enable me to upload stuff to the car from home. Sync videos, photos,
software and more. On top of this I wouldn’t have to go to a garage to check up on
problems with my car. Instead I would be able to hook up online and get a
diagnose to see what the problem is all about. You could probably even get
problems fixed without even going there at all.

93

Of course you should enable companies that manufacture physical gadgets the
option hook em into the car. Say Electronic Arts loves your new open source
environment and produces Tiger Woods 2010 to be played inside your car. Then
of course another manufacturer of gaming controls should be allowed to hook up
their shit.

On top of this everyone who want to should have the possibility to extract or
insert data from/into the car. I can't see the point why I should be able to back up
my newly taken photographs straight into my car hard drive.

AN APPLICATION PL ATFORM WITH OPEN API
With an open API the car industry would open an a whole new business area.
Entertainment, tools, information, sociala networking etc. Think for yourselves -
if you could have anything you want on a screen while driving your car - what
would it be?

Think about this, your need is totally different depending on your placement in
the car. If you’re driving you need one setup of apps. If you’re in the seat besides
the driver you have another need. In the back of your car you might have two kids
trying their best not fall down dead from boredom. The possibilities are of course
enormous. Ultimately the car industry would end up launching their own app
store.

94

GRAPHIC CAPABILITIES THAT C OULD
HANDLE GAMES AS GO OD AS THE ONES FOR
XBOX 360 AND PL AYSTATION AND PL AY
BACK HIGH DEFINITION (HD) AND BLUERAY
MOVIES.
Build it and they will come. This was said by Kevin Costner in the movie field of
dreams. And when it comes to this bullet it's true to the bone. If the car industry
would build a great OS that had the capabilities above every developer in the
world would develop games for it. The entertainment industry would dance of joy.
But even better - The kids traveling in the back of your car would shut up and
enjoy the ride!

GPS AND MOTION SENSORS
A no-brainer. You’re in a car. You’re traveling and you’re accessing information
and applications that can become a lot richer if they can know about your
whereabouts and what you’re doing. From a safety perspective we will see
applications that monitor our driving and automatically calls the emergency
number if we crash.

95

ONE TOUCH-SCREEN PER SEAT!
And I really mean one screen per seat. Just as stated above the needs are very
different and very individual for everyone traveling in a car. The OS should of
course handle different profiles etc. When I get in to the drivers seat the OS
should treat me in one way. When I sit my self in the passenger seat the system
should treat me in another way. Shortly - let me have what I want!

FINALLY - BRANDED APPLICATIONS
Of course, if you had this InCar OS installed in every car of your brand you
should definitely add some branding to it. If I buy, say a BMW, with this OS i will
of course expect applications and functionality tightly tied to BMW and their
brand. Think about it - what an opportunity to strengthen relations and establish
long term structural bindings.

TO SUM THINGS UP.
Car brands all over the world. Join forces. Hire the best developers from Apple
and get going on your own 'InCar OS' and change our in-car experiences and your
profits forever! (maybe before Apple does!)

96

BLOG POST 10

BRAND AND COMMUNICATION
PREDICTIONS FOR
2009 BY JOHAN RONNESTAM

{ ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 29, 2008 }
http://www.ronnestam.com/brand-and-communication-predictions-for-2009-
by-johan-ronnestam/

97

BLOG POST 10

Brand and communication
predictions for 2009 by Johan
Ronnestam

Last year, inspired by ReadWriteWeb I stuck my nose out and tried to predict
what 2008 would bring us in terms of trends, technology, communication and
ideas. About 70% of my thoughts were confirmed but I of course missed out on
some too.

2008 is coming to an end and it's time for me to let that poor nose of mine feel the
heat again. 2009 is harder to predict than ever since we have a free falling
economy in the world at the moment. How will smaller budgets effect advertising,
investments in technology, self confidence and personal evolvement? Hell if I
knew, but here are some ideas.

98

Here are 9 things/trends I believe you should look out
for and possibly follow in 2009

1. TECHNOLO GY BEC OMES A C OMMODIT Y
AND IDEAS PROSPER FROM IT
Open Source in combination with broadband access in low cost producing
countries will make companies move their technology projects outside their local
markets. Companies that earn money from building content management, blogs,
communities and other common systems have to move their competence from
production towards ideas. Cause after all, who will pay €100 000 for a content
management system when you can get Typo3, Magento, Wordpress, Pligg, Joomla,
Drupal and other excellent systems for free. On top of that, have people in India
bidding for it and you'll end up paying $600 instead of $60 000 for the
implementation of it.

Making it do the right thing and look right, that's something we wont outsource
just yet. So, bet on ideas and brains.

2. IN 2009 PRINT AND OU TD O OR
ADVERTISING GROW STRONGER WHILE T V
C ONTINUES TO DIE.
Analysts, brands and media agencies all say people move money from traditional
advertising to digital. Personally I believe glossy magazines and outdoor locations
close to standing still environments (bus-stops, squares, subways etc) will grow.
These are locations where people cannot leave.

99

Solutions however will be far more customized than today and we'll focus on
fewer but better placements.

3. C OMMUNICATION CAPITALISM IS BORN IN
2009
We'll see more and more brands moving from the strategy of putting it all on one
card to campaign experimentation.
More brands than ever will in 2009 dare to loose control of their communication
and try multiple campaigns beside each other. The ones that deliver on target will
be feeded more money, the ones that doesn't deliver are killed and new ones are
born. Exactly like you would treat your stock portfolio - don't put everything on
one card.

In 2008 I started to call this strategy Communication Capitalism and it's time for
you to do that too cause in 2009 it'll kick off.

4. ONLINE ADVERTISING SUFFERS FROM
L ACK OF C OMPETENCE AND WILL SLOW
D OWN IN 2009 FOR THE FIRST TIME IN
YEARS
Lots of brands have now tried different strategies for online advertising. While
doing so they've gotten better at measuring their campaigns and the results
doesn't meet expectations. Flash campaigns with full screen video doesn't give
shit. Banners keep on loosing click rate. RSS feeds are great but how do you place

100

advertising that people see inside it? Facebook advertising didn't deliver. Adwords
is kinda of nice but where's the branding?

On top of this the media companies doesn't know jack shit about what's going on.
The digital agencies produce fantastic campaigns but there's not enough senior
employees to choose communication over cool technologies. Over at the brand
side the competence on digital media is in generally low and the marketing
directors has to choose a communication partner. Today that partner is the
traditional advertising agency mostly because of their senior employees. The
problem here is that they don't understand the digital medium - and that's a
disaster for the brands and their communication efforts.

To sum of the problem.

• There's just not enough senior people in the world that really understand
how to combine traditional and digital communication.

• This means agencies, brands and media advisors continue to suggest the
wrong things.

Result: Brands will pull out of online activities due to it.

5. SEO / SEM FREEL ANCERS ORGANIZE
THEMSELVES
If you're looking for people that truly understands SEO/SEM marketing you
choice shouldn't be a media agency or any other company for that sake. Most
people out there that truly understands SEO/SEM are individuals or very small
companies. The problem however for big brands is that these individuals or
companies cannot cater for their needs, their basically too small.

101

In order for SEO/SEM to kick off we really need to see some sort of network that
can bring all these great brains together but still let them run their own
companies. Media companies are all about taking over everything. These SEO/
SEM newcomers are all about networking and sharing so sooner or later
something like this should come.

6. APPLE L AUNCHES THE IPHONE PRO AND
STARTS SELLING IPHONE AND RATE PL ANS
IN ITUNES.
After winning the hearts of millions around the world it's time for Apple to
launch the second generation iPhones and I believe it'll be a Pro version of the
iPhone.

We'll see better memory capacity, more space, better keyboard, maybe even a
bigger flip out screen of some kind. On top of this they'll use the magic bullet
gained by cooperating with different operators in every country world wide.
They've more or less gotten them all to pay for the iTunes implementation and
now the exclusive deals are starting to run out. Haha says Apple as they will start
selling iPhones in computer shops and sell the rate plans online.

(Rumors say that Apple will launch the iPhone Nano but I just thought it was
boring to go with that one)

(Update: While I was writing this part, rumors started to spread about an iPhone
Pro as well)

102

7. FACEBO OK C ONNECT AND GO O GLE
FRIEND C ONNECT C ONTINUE TO GROW BU T
FRIENDFEED FRIENDS MIGHT BE THE
WINNER IN 2009
During the later part of 2008 we've seen how Facebook and Google has moved
their positions forward to grab a larger part of the social networking cake. In the
background however lurks Friendfeed. It's quickly growing and the people that
use Facebook Connect of Google Friend Connect would probably welcome a
social connector from someone else than the big ones and use that one more.
Friendfeed could and will be that third party.

Why not call it Friendfeed Friends?

8. BRANDING IS BEING REEVALUATED IN
2009
Digital communication is totally revamping the landscape of telling people about
your brand. The base of brand strategies will remain the same but the tactical part
of it - treatment of logotypes, typefaces, colors, graphical guidelines and who
officially represent a brand will change.

In 2009 we'll se more brand than ever that let their corporate guidelines loose and
start experimenting. As more and more brand activities get digitized brands will
learn that it's not about the graphical guidelines but instead about keeping the
conversation alive.

In 2009 branding becomes being a personality and personalities change constantly
but their heart and spine stay the same. You might say that this is not something

103

new but until now most brands believe their brand manual is the guide to heaven
when it's actually the guide to hell. In 2009 this old fashioned way of
communicating your brand will change.

9. MASHUPS GROW UP AND C ONQUER THE
C ORPORATE WORLD.
This year we've seen how a lot of sites turned into mashups.

A mashup is about creating one place where visitors can view content from
sources like YouTube, Flickr, Del.icio.us, Twitter, Facebook and much more. Until
now most of the good mashup sites has been personal websites or web 2.0
companies. In 2009 we'll see how large brands like Nike, Diesel, adidas, Apple,
Coca Cola, Disney, GM, Puma, Ikea, Samsung, Absolut and more will turn their
websites into mashups.

All kind of brands will see the benefit of not hosting your videos in-house but
instead creating channels on multiple social video platforms. Your images will be
better spread if placed on Flickr. That corporate blog of yours works better if it's
running on Wordpress and mashed into your and your partners websites. Sites
like Yahoo Pipes and Tarpipe will do wonders for the social spread and suddenly
you find your brand site being turned into a true web 2.0 entity.

So, there we are. Nothing else to do this year now but wishing you all a happy
new year. May 2009 be as interesting as this year has been.

104

Links in the text above that you may wanna follow

The book contains links every here and there since it’s more or less copied straight
from my blog. Therefore I’ve gathered all the links here so that you can follow
them to the right source if you wanna find out more. I’ve also listed all these links
in the blog post I wrote when I released the book. It might be easier to continue
from there:

http://www.superbrands.nu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us
http://www.nike.com/
http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/usnikefootball/en_US/
http://www.pricerunner.com/
http://getsatisfaction.com/
http://www.zappos.com/
http://ideastorm.com/
http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/
http://twitter.com/zappos
http://pepsi.com/
http://twitter.com/christinelu
http://industry.bnet.com/advertising/1000404/pepsi-apologizes-on-twitter-for-suicide-ad-by-
bbdo/
http://www.twitter.com/interactiveAmy
http://www.viddler.com/explore/dpzramon/videos/19/
http://twitter.com/Ramon_DeLeon/
http://www.studica.com/products/product_detail.cfm?productid=60458&storeid=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VOwqtOglg
http://wordpress.org/
http://www.joomla.org/

106

http://www.magentocommerce.com/
http://drupal.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL
http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism/
http://www.threadless.com/
http://www.compricer.se/
http://www.ronnestam.com/wp-admin/www.google.com/reader
http://www.netvibes.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_procedure_call
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.picasa.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.blip.tv/
http://www.vimeo.com/
http://www.ronnestam.com/2009/01/19/wondering-how-to-get-a-viral-spread-of-that-great-
video-of-yours/
http://sharethis.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_%28file_format%29
http://www.twitter.com/
http://www.jaiku.com/
http://www.bloggy.ser/
http://www.friendfeed.com/
http://www.last.fm/
http://www.spotify.com/
http://delicious.com/
http://www.facebook.com/

107

http://www.wikipedia.com/
http://www.ronnestam.com/2009/01/02/get-your-clown-suit-ready-if-you-wanna-reach-out-to-
consumers-in-2009/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Sorrell
http://www.garmin.com/
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=142&pID=31859
http://www.ronnestam.com/2009/08/25/seduce-us-or-excuse-us-11-ways-to-bring-your-brand-up-
to-date/
http://www.ronnestam.com/2009/03/04/wwrd-36-things-ronnestam-would-do-differently-if-he-
had-control-of-brand-that-delivered-broadband-telecom-and-television-services/
http://www.ronnestam.com/2009/02/01/controlling-your-brand-with-creative-excellence/
http://www.zappos.com/
http://twitter.com/zappos
http://www.ronnestam.com/2009/09/17/21-steps-how-to-monitor-your-brand-online-and-
conversation/
http://www.ronnestam.com/2008/01/11/varsagod-here-are-my-netvibes-feeds/
http://www.macrumors.com/
http://www.apple.com/pro/
http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/
http://www.apple.com/ipod/carintegration/
http://www.apple.com/
http://www.ronnestam.com/2008/05/21/shopping-experience-of-tomorrow/
http://store.apple.com/us
http://www.apple.com/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/support/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
http://www.ronnestam.com/2009/02/01/controlling-your-brand-with-creative-excellence/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
http://socialmention.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

108

http://twitter.com/deeped
http://www.seomoz.org/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/ranking-factors-version-3-released
http://www.comscore.com/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/31/top-social-media-sites-of-2008-facebook-still-rising/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.myspace.com/
https://www.blogger.com/
http://home.live.com/
http://www.buzzmachine.com/what-would-google-do/
http://www.daytona.se/blogg/wwgd
http://www.comcast.com/
http://orange.com/
http://rr.com/
http://www.telia.com/
http://comhem.se/
http://newsroom.electrolux.com/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
http://www.hulu.com/
http://www.google.com/docs
http://www.gmail.com/
http://www.rebtel.com/
http://www.skype.com/
http://www.getdropbox.com/
http://www.apple.com/itunes
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.vimeo.com/

109

http://www.blip.tv/
http://www.getsatisfaction.com/
http://www.bambuser.com/
http://www.twitter.com/
http://creativecommons.org/
http://www.symbian.org/
http://www.ea.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_API
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097351/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/9602
http://www.ronnestam.com/2007/12/27/my-predictions-for-2008/
http://www.typo3.com/
http://www.magentocommerce.com/
http://wordpress.org/
http://www.pligg.com/
http://www.joomla.org/
http://drupal.org/
http://gizmodo.com/5119445/the-dream-iphone-pro
http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php
http://www.google.com/friendconnect/
http://friendfeed.com/
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/
http://tarpipe.com/

110

TOP 10 BLOG POSTS ON FUTURE BRANDING AND COMMUNICATION FROM RONNESTAM.COM WITH LOVE

TOP 10 BLOG POSTS ON FUTURE BRANDING AND COMMUNICATION
FROM RONNESTAM.COM WITH LOVE

So far this year my blog www.ronnestam.com have had more than 105 000 unique visitors
and more than 240 000 visits. I’ve written more than 500 blog posts covering everything
from design, gadgets, trends, technology, advertising, innovations, personal things, branding
and more. About 28% of the visitors during this last year have ended up reading a post that
was tagged with branding. Maybe that’s no coincidence since besides trends and creativity I’d
say branding is the subject that is the most dearest to me.

When I’ve been looking deeper down into the stats I’ve seen that many of you visitors haven't
really explored my blog beyond the posts on the rst page or the actual post they came to
read. is is why I thought it made sense to gather them all like this - ‘Top 10 Blog Posts on
Future Branding and Communication From Ronnestam.com’

Johan Ronnestam is widely regarded as one of Sweden’s leading authority in the
eld of creative and conceptual thinking, and skill of innovating brands and
communication. He took part in founding one of Europe’s most successful digital
communication agencies, awarded in Cannes Lions, Epica, Clio, New York
Advertising Festival, London International Advertising Awards, DA&D and more,
voted DI Gasell aer the rst 4 years. Today he runs his own creative shop. His blog
has been voted Sweden’s rst blog on digital communication, trends and technology.
His sessions, invariably popular and appreciated, are sought aer by business,
government and education globally.

TOP 10 BLOG POSTS ON FUTURE BRANDING AND COMMUNICATION FROM RONNESTAM.COM WITH LOVE

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TOP 10 BLOG POSTS ON FUTURE BRANDING AND COMMUNICATION FROM RONNESTAM.COM WITH LOVE