I´m afraid that this blog will be left unattended for a longer period. Time is a precious gift and so is having a baby. I´m combining those two gifts this winter.
Thanks for visiting.
For some years I've been a frontrunner without actually knowing it. This thanks to a pathetic need for play and giving my inner child plenty of room. This revelation of smartness is related to OOO, or if you prefer out of office assistant.
What? It's blatantly obvious, but something you need to think more about. Every time I've written a OOO it's been made with care and love for language, and my asynchronous friends and business partners (increasingly often these coincide). The result is that people actually read the text of the Out of Office Assistant.
Hooray, but what's the point your trying to make you say?
Every contact you have with customers and other relationships is an opportunity to build ties and stronger connections. Stronger ties usually means more business. A consciousness regarding these small texts can help strengthen your brand, and it is also an excellent training opportunity in creative writing skills.
Example: Walking in the mountains of Norway. Enhancing my ability to see larger images. Photos of glorious nature coming soon on Flickr. Curious about the result of the brain training? Available for talks from date X.
Example 2: Gone shopping in London. Economic hard times are not solved by closing the wallet. According to Nielsen, each dollar spent shopping generates 3 for society as a whole. Proposals for shops to visit? Twitter me. Proposals for campaigns to increase the shopping can be discussed from the date X.
That wasn't difficult?
Make your social surroundings a favor, do your OOO's more entertaining. It might even generate business.
PS This sounds as something Seth Godin may have said once, but since I haven't read absolutely all the millions of words he has published I choose to take some responsibility for the idea. Should you find references to this topic on the web you are welcome to link to those with a comment.
The O images are a CC remix of Flickr images made by Leo Reynolds.
Why do big brands have to appeal to everyone all the time? Apparantly Honda does not believe in that mantra. And I thank them for that. For many years they have delivered daring and different campaigns in Britain. It's therefore with great pleasure to report a smart communication vehicle (pun intended) from USA.
Dreams. A series of documentaries that picks up inspiration from the brilliant british Hondamentalism campaign. Not sure if campaign is the correct wording for these 2 projects from Honda, but they are surely inspirational. What is it about Dreams from Honda that makes it so special? First of all, they don't talk about the actual product they are selling (cars and motors mostly) but what lies behind creating that product.
Honda is using internet to build a stronger emotional connection with possible customers by sharing thoughts that in the past was internal only. And in many cases still are internal only. Honda, on the other hand gives fans insight. 
The site itself sits in the minimalism dept. There are a few documentaries and the short text above. That's it. usually sites like these are filled up with extra stuff that has no true meaning. Honda Dreams have one mission and that is to give us the chance to see the documentaries they have have produced. The films do the talking. Clutter that up and the content of the films disappear.
Purity is not the only aspect to applaud. Notice the sharing part. All films can be embedded, linked to and best of all downloaded. I cannot count the times I meet brand owners who are afraid what might happen if people can download films. What to worry? If a person download a film about your brand from your own site, I would call that person a fan. A big fan. That's just beautiful. Do you really need a better explanation for why you should make your online films downloadable? If you fear uncontrolled spreading then welcome to 09. You don't control. Period. Accept it, move on, loose the fear and love thy fans.
Nuff said. Here is one of the films from Honda, which by the way have ranked up more than 1 million views alltogether so far (that does not include YouTube numbers). Impressive when you have engineers talking about cars in the future and why failure is good for progress. Geeks, gotta love them.
Hmm. GM might be part of the original american dream but them japanese carmakers sure have something good going for the new american dream. Don't you agree?
Here's a thought for marketers and advertising agencies.
The other day I talked to a friend of mine who happens to be one of the most talented young Norwegians painters (in my mind at least) about the art market. She noted that it wasn't exactly flurishing, and she told me that there were worries among her peers that they might not be able to live of their creativity.
Big shame, but even bigger shame, is the loss of this surplus of sheer creativity. There are definately artists that does not never ever sell out to commercial forces, but there are definately those who understand the benefits (and by that I mean more than cold cash).
WK London and Hi-Res! asked several artists to create short movies for Nokia. Good! But there's room for much more. Put a painter in a room with a programmer and a webdesigner and see what happens. Perhaps a exiting webpage. We are becoming generically boring in our web precense. This might be part of the antidote. Also, it will help artists continue to be able to make a living using their brilliant creativity. Society does not thrive because of the basics, but because of the art that inspire us.
Am I being naive? Perhaps. But I still think I'm onto something. So will you action? Go out and get inspired?
In the meantime (while you ponder if you have the guts) enjoy this Nokia movie.
Nokia E71 launch / 6 Billion People, 6 Billion Colours from Universal Everything on Vimeo.
Wildfire alert. Samsung has created a viral movie with sheeps. LED lighted sheeps to be accurate. Can sheeps act as a Pong game? Indeed. Fireworks? Definately.
Before I give you my personal opinion on this stunt from Samsung, indulge in this highly entertaining flick.
In less than a week this film gained more than 1 million views at YouTube alone. It's spreadability is without any doubt close to perfection.
But what makes this a good marketing stunt?
- The film contains elements of the key message from Samsung? LED lights.
- It's highy entertaining.
- It gives you a feeling that "is it really for real".
- If passing it along you don't feel "bought" by the brand, because the brand message is subtle.
In other words, the film itself is spot on as a standalone.
But, there is sometimes a but. If you follow the link to the Samsung page in the end, we end up on Samsung TV homepage. To enter choose your languange. One of them being EMA. In business lingo this usually reference Emerging Markets and Africa (or in some cases Americas). But how many people know that they live in EMA? I sure wouldn't like to live there. My country, Norway, didn't even exist. Yes it feels like nowhere quite often, but not that nowhere.
If you're asking people to visit a site, please make sure that entering is as easy as possible.
I don't know how many clicks I had to make to get to more info on LED technology, but it was too many. And no reference to the actual movie with the LED sheeps. No making of (how did they do that), no LED sheeps to download and so on.
Conclusion. Superb film, bad follow up. I call this a lost oppurtunity to nail the message further into my mind. I was after all ready for it. You had my positive interest. Don't get me wrong. In my opinion this must be worth the money invested. Congrats Samsung.
Definition of Trenzy. When a person on Twitter goes on a update spree. Preferably in a angry tone directed against a topic/ company or individual.
Here is a theoretical example.
Lifehack
Why don't Nokia support updates for Mac usrs? 2 hours ago
I feel like I've been sent on a loop through all the Nokia pages on the web to sort it. No bloody xplanation. 45 min ago
Stupid Care center uses 3 days to update my phone??!! I cant live 3 dayz without my mobile!!!! 30 min ago
I will never by a Nokia phone again. Arrogant finish vodka drinking flock under MSFT control. Samsung here I come. 10 min ago
What to learn for a marketeer you say? There are 2 things actually.
First. Do you listen for actual Trenzies about your products or brand in social media? If not, you better start. Check out Twingly who can do both blog searches and Twitter searches.
Second. If you pick up the word Trenzy in your vocabulary I will have proven how easy spreading content in a connected world is.
A short but sweet Digg. If you want to check out my tweets follow the link in the upper left corner of this blog page.
Too often marketeers are jumping onboard the bandwagon named New Technology when planning a campaign. The risk factor to fail in your communication increases dramatically because of this.
Technology is not a strategy. Technology is merely a tool to get the communication across. And way too often the message gets lost on the way.
General Electric (GE) launched a new campaign to talk about smart grids at this years SuperBowl. And they did so by inviting viewers to make a digital hologram on their campaign site. A digital hologram? I say, sounds like a splendid innovation. Indeed, but how many wants to print out a paper at home, turn on their webcam and blow into the mic to see a hologram of windmills? I'm sure there are thousands, me being one of them, but did the digital hologram make me smarter about the smart grid system? GE and their ad partners were at least clever enough to make sure that holograms were not key ingridient to enjoy the site. It was more a trigger of interest to come visit and test it if you chose so.
The other day I was pampered with messages from Fanta (in Oslo, Norway, mobile density +100%) being told to get my mobile out of my pocket and scan a so called QR Code to download Fanta movies. Great. The key message on the bus were:
"This is not a bus. This is a movie on wheels."
As the geek I am I jumped on the invitation, but the dissapointment of not getting the code to work frustrated me. When departing the bus, a similar ad was on display. I tried again. With no success this time around either. Later that day I entered a shopping mall and Fanta told me to turn on my Bluetooth to get the movies. Three times not a charm for Fanta I'm afraid.
A short norwegian love story. The trendy clothing brand Moods of Norway has shown daring standard in design and marketing from the very beginning of their brands history. Not least, they have shown a real joy playing with their own brand.
In connection with the release of the brilliant game Little Big Planet, they have transferred this playfulness to an interactive gaming platform. LBA is a long awaited release for game enthusiasts, much due to the fact that players can create their own levels that can be shared with other players. It is precisely that, a game level, Moods of Norway has created. 
The distributor of the PlayStation3 has been in dialogue with
Moods of Norway for a long period to find a good collaboration project. Marketing Director Morten Christoffersen at Nordisk Film Interactive (distributor of PlayStation in Norway) notes that this collaboration was a carefully selected choice. "Moods of Norway is perfect for a"less serious" game like Little Big Planet. Their values and the game's content was a perfect fit. There were never any doubt that this was a match made in game heaven."
So how to measure whether such cooperation is a success or not? Christoffersen noted that only after a couple of weeks 1,300 people had played the MoN board and by doing so involved themselves in the brand. (The level takes 6-8 minutes to play through). A number of media outlets in Norway and abroad have written about the cooperation, but this is not where I think the most important value is to be found. The value in taking the customer seriously and show that they want to be present in their daily life is imperative. A typical PS3 player is approaching his 30's and enjoys a good game experience. By providing a free experience to them, brandstories ignites. Stories that can be distributed further. It is rare to see something this close to a perfect and innovative brand collaboration in Norway.
Great to see that Norwegian ad agencies (Making Waves in this case) can make good alternative interactive applications. More of this please!
PlanB did an interview with Making Waves which can be found here if you want to read more about how they made the game level.
However, if you only want to see a movie of it, take a look at this charmer. As you can see. This is in real Moods of Norway spirit.
Well done to both PlayStation and Moods of Norway.
How come so many brands seems to do the exact same as their competitors? Canon is positioning themselves away from the competition with their new campaign called Freecording.
Freecording is shooting film with a different perspective than you usually do when you create your home made videos. For the amateur (me being one), it was unusually inspiring to see the films they had made, were Canon showed examples of how shoting with a different angle makes recordings more exciting for both the producer and viewer.
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The campaign site makes my desire to film stronger, and it is sparking ideas to create interesting movies by engaging potential buyers of Canon's cameras. Quote from website: Freecording is a method to capture the visual world around us in our own way, with our own style and with our own vision.
What can a marketeer learn from this?
Focus on sharing inspiration and knowledge. It will lead to the engagement. By inspiring the customer to use the product likelihood of purchase increases.
What can we do better than Canon?
Make the content of the website ready for embedding and sharing. Nothing would delight me more than if I could have posted one of the movies here, but Canon didn’t give me that option. Not good. 
As Jetblue did with Jetting, Canon has risen over a category fight with this campaign. Instead of pixels, and other technical mumbo jumbo they created a new shooting method. They gave me the opportunity to tell those who bother to listen to me about how fun it is to shoot Freecording style and Canon gave me the tips. Are you making home videos? Why not try Freecording.
Not only was the campaign page easy to maneuver and be inspired by. The banners were also simple and effective in their design. I actually clicked on this banner from a page at online newspage Aftenposten.no.
I liked the discreet but constant placement of the logo in the banner. Logos are not dangerous, they are helpful. They apply info to the recipient on whether or not this is something relevant to his or her daily life. (Under the condition of being a well-known brand that is.)
Do you have a brand where you are one of many? Then ask yourself as soon as possible: What can I do for my potential customers/ users to enable them to talk about me in an inspiring and engaging way? If you do not have the answer to this your future might become highly uncomfortable. Now you're warned.
First time published in norwegian (July 08) at Norwegiasyndromet.
A while ago I found a new app on the Web. After a simple innstall it was simply drag and drop images over a Polaroid icon, and after a few seconds a digital version of an old Polaroid picture popped out of a virtual polaroid camera on my desktop.
All the charm and irritations of a real polaroid were there, the frame, the sligthly matte colors, you could shake the image to enable it to develop faster. Good memories ...
This app have 3 000 friends on Flickr, over 300 000 have downloaded it from the official home page and users are clearly excited (1 month after realease).
Here is one of my official releases.
Made by Polaroid? Nope. Poladroid is created by a single frenchman, just for fun. So why didn’t Polaroid make Poladroid? Because Polaroid made unique cameras not interactive toys.
Today we know that it is not the technology itself but the content technology let’s us create, that increasingly controls a product's success or not. iPhone is a good example of exactly that. Polaroid is not.
Polaroid has in decades built up a fangroup that gets increasingly less time for the brand in their everyday hustle. But imagine if it was possible to install an application on your computer where you could pick out existing photos for "polaroiding".
So a frenchman saw the need, but Polaroid themselves could have taken this further. The first part (the application) could be free (as it is now). Development of actual images could have a charge. Intriguing possibility isn’t it? 
If one Frenchman was able to get 300 000 Mac heads to install the app (PC version was in Alpha when this was published), think how many millions users the Polaroid corporation could have activated. As an example. 1 USD per image, 3 images on average per customer, 5 million people. 15 million USD. Good additional business if you ask me.
So why is restructuring so difficult? Why are we so good to see the dangers of change instead of the possibilities? Why do we first cut the innovation budget in periods of decline. "People, we must focus on the core product. Tough times demands serious acting. Stop being playful. "
Analysis would not reveal the need of a Poladroid app. Companies are generally built to further refine what it has already established as solid products and that generate steady income. Professor and author Clay Shirky claims that
"the transaction cost for companies is too high to allow the individual accidental brilliant idea to grow".Hence, they (companies) select security and a economic framework that doesn’t vary too much (either up or down).
Who visits Oslo? Head of Tourism (Visit Oslo), Tor Sannerud, is skeptical to promote Oslo to young tourists. He claims the city is too expensive for young travellers, so he don't want to promote the city to a younger demographic. It is therefore pleasing to inform that the Internet has once again revealed perceived public opinion to be at best, biased.
As an active user of the travel community TripAdvisor, I was curious to take a look at my own city, Oslo, and see what other travellers thought of my not so elegant city. (TripAdvisor is the world's largest community Web site for travelers where you read other's experiences travelling the world).
In the picture below you see a list of the most popular attractions Oslo has to offer. 
My personal hangout, Cafe Mono, on top of the list!? Rock bar of the year a few years ago, but being so unique that even foreigners see this as a Must experience was a bit of a surprise.
So in grave journalistic spirit I scooped down to Mono (perhaps for a glass as well..) and asked if they had a lot of visits from abroad. Indeed, the bartender claimed it to be in periods insanely many of "those foreigners". Even the well respected SüdDeutche Zeitung had dropped in to make a serious story on the bar. (It is a dark, no frills bar with excellent rock music).
Travel Guru Jens A. Risnæs said the following in an interview in Aftenposten (Norwegian newspaper) in July 2007. Youth are tomorrows former of the general opinion. In order to improve our reputation abroad, we need young people to come here. Why don't the tourist board acknowledge this obvious fact?
Risnæs is onto something. But will Head of Tourism Tor Sannerud and his colleagues listen to the existing storytellers? There are many who clearly has enjoyed the small unique experiences in Oslo. But you don't see them sitting outside the Viking Ship Museum asking retired Germans about what is good or not in Oslo. And unfortunately that's the storytellers Visit Oslo listens to.
So what can marketers learn from this? The answer to whom your potential customers is will not be found in selected surveys. In the same way as not finding the answer to whom the next major artist will be by reading the tabloids. If Steve Jobs used Visit Oslo's tactic, the iPhone would have ended as a what if exercise.
Internet is a great tool for marketers to listen to customers. The question is if you know where to listen. Visit Oslo would see new opportunities if they gave the forum at TripAdvisor a visit. Do you know where to listen for feedback on your brand on the net?
Published in Norwegian at Norvegiasyndromet in February 2008
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