Blog of Johan Ronnestam

Category: Simplicity

  • Wanna become a good at playing golf?

    Wanna become a good at playing golf?

    – Well, you know what to do: You read everything you can, take lessons, get new clubs, watch YouTube tutorials, buy the streaming golf TV package, become a member of a good golf course, find yourself turning the living room into a putting green and you know exactly what to wish for when Christmas comes. […]

  • Sharing some of my thoughts on viral marketing – The Viral Triangle

    Sharing some of my thoughts on viral marketing – The Viral Triangle

    Just say the word – Viral – and brand owners go bananas. It’s what you want. Communication spread all over the world without a penny in media spend. It sounds so easy but in fact, not that many videos circles the globe every year. Let me share one of my ways of increase the probability […]

  • Google exactly what you're thinking!

    Google exactly what you're thinking!

    As I travel the world both in business and for pleasure I end up speaking about ideas. People who have ideas, want ideas, heard an idea or would like to have an idea. These conversations gives me so much energy. People all over the world are craving to invent things, start a business, solve a […]

  • Future brands are like icebergs

    Future brands are like icebergs

    We all know how what an iceberg looks like. As you approach it it looks fairly small, it’s easy to get an idea of the size, the shape and dimensions of it. However, we all know that underneath that surface the total mass of the iceberg is hidden. In fact 7/8 of the iceberg is hidden […]

  • The Oracle says:

  • Change starts with a knife!

    The food industry keeps on spending money on products that saves us time. Fast food, pre cooked food, half fabricates, frozen food etc etc. It’s easier than ever to distance ourselves from the fact that we are using up natures resources faster and faster. If we keep it up we’ll be in big trouble sooner […]

  • What makes people take action?

    The toughest question on earth. How do you make people do something? I don’t mean clicking ‘like’ on your Facebook page or follow a link only to spend 2 minutes watching a fun video. How do you actually make people see something, find out more about it and then take action. I’d say it’s harder than […]

  • Monkeyfy your brand!

    Remember that first slide of yours? Ever tried an iPhone? When you first did, did you have to read the manual? Nope cause Apple builds their stuff for the monkey brain we’re equipped with. It was configured some

  • Case: Let's Bank with Fredrik 'Benke' Rydman and Marginalen Bank.

    If you’ve followed this blog and me for a while you know I’ve been heading the work of making one of Sweden’s newest brands come to life – The Marginalen Bank. It’s a fantastic assignment where I’ve together with Caroline Karlström have been given the honor of both creating the actual brand as well as […]

  • Case: Revamping Vasakronan. Swedens largest property brand.

    Sometime last year I was approached by Vasakronan, Swedens largest property brand with a property portfolio valued at SEK 80.3 billion. Being a market leader the felt their digital presence had to reflect that position. Their question: What do we do? As always I teamed up with Caroline Karlström and accepted the challenge to answer that question. In […]

  • If you wanna be my brand!

    If you’re my brand: Never let me down. Keep on making me smile. Stay cool. Always surprise me. Change when you need to, but stay true to your heritage. Dress nice. Make sure I don’t have to hide our love. If you do something bad – stay honest and tell the truth cause I will […]

  • The Essentials Of Great Branding Building

    There are tons of consultants (including myself) selling branding services around the world. Most tend to say (not including myself) that branding is complexed. A quick search on Google image search reveals tons of models. What if we look beyond those models and all those advices that often lead to heavy brand manuals that no […]

  • Future Integrated Communication From A Digital Perspective

    Leading a brand? Thinking about how to create a long term integrated communication platform? Think no more cause I’ll share the model I’ve been using for the last three years when leading brands into the future of advertising, communication and advertising. Normally I’d work a company or brand through a series of workshops. We would […]

  • How To Successfully Identify A Future Trend

    I’m currently working on my 2011 brand and communication prediction. While I’m working on that I drew up one of the best models I know when it comes to predicting future trends. Enjoy!

  • Don't Fall In Love With Your History. Embrace Your Future!

    It is hilarious. For as long as I’ve lived map-makers of the world has tried about a trillion different ways to fold a map so that it doesn’t crumple. Then suddenly someone, in this case a young designer named Emanuele Pizzolorusso from Milan, decides to look at the problem from a new perspective. What if […]

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

    What do you do when someone asks you to sign a non disclosure agreement and then asks you to spend the coming year planning, creating, implementing and launching a new Swedish bank? Say yes of course! This is where the story of the freshly launched brand Marginalen Bank starts. Together with recidivist Caroline Karlström I […]

  • Life Is Made Up By Small Things That Don't Seem To Matter

    We are born. Even before we’re born our life is being shaped day by day. Every day, every hour and every second life passes by. Sometimes tons of things happens at once and suddenly we notice a shape, we call these shapes memories. But most of the time life is made up by small things […]

  • Common Sense Communication

    In the offline world, if your customers didn’t find what they were looking for inside your store and left without shopping. Would you: a) Rethink the layout of your store today b) Rethink the layout of your store next year c) Rethink the layout of your store within the next three years I think the […]

  • Think People Will Read About Your Service? Think Again!

    Time is precious. Don’t you agree? For example if I spend to much time here going on about this and that you’re gonna start to think ‘what the heck, get to the point you #%*#’er. So, I’m not gonna spend to much of your time. Instead. Have a look at these 5 demo videos and […]

  • When You Want To Communicate Something. Change Perspective!

    Have a look at the video below and tell me if you’re not amazed. Turning things up side down. Black becomes white. Faster when you’re used to going slow. Smile when people expect you to be sad. Something big when people expected something small. Diving when people expected skydiving. Whatever you do, don’t do what […]

  • The 10 Commandments Of Future Brands

    There’s a couple of things I demand from brands that make it all the way into my life. It’s really not that hard. It’s just about being prepared to sacrifice your life for what you believe in! A Tweaked Moses with the Ten Commandments by Philippe de Champaigne 1648 from Freechristimages Here are the 10 […]

  • Simon Pestridge From Nike Make Future Advertising Sound Simple

    Apple, Nike, adidas, Google and so on. It’s always easy to point the wow pointer to these huge brands that have massive amounts of brand fans world wide. But sometimes you’ve just gotta remind people about why these brands often are leading the pack. I have just gotten of stage in Tallin, Estonia after speaking […]

  • Case ›› Re-branding: Turning A Diving Brand With A Heritage Into A Brand With A Future

    Last summer I got on a train leaving Stockholm for Gothenburg. Together with freelancing project manager, planner and colleague Caroline Karlström I had a meeting set up with diving brand Poseidon. This was the start of a project where I truly had the opportunity to work with all aspects of branding and creative communication. A […]

  • Brand and Communication Predictions For 2010 by Johan Ronnestam

    This last year, 2009 has been a blast in many ways. Almost every day I’ve received interesting news from friends, other bloggers and my RSS feeds. Even thought we’ve seen one of the most severe economical downturns this year it seems advertising, communication and technology has been the business to be in. Brands seem to […]

  • 10 Reasons Why The Screens Are Coming in 2010

    The Mobile Revolution. Have you heard that one before. Well, just when it’s about to happen thanks to the iPhone and the Android OS I’d like to launch a thought about the next revolution – ‘The Revolution of the Screens’. A couple of month back I got my Amazon Kindle. I blogged about the Microsoft […]

  • Surf's Up! Or…Are You Having Problems Getting Waved

    You might be one of the lucky ones finding yourself logged into your brand new Google Wave account? Then you, just like me, might also think something must be wrong with you since you’re not getting what all the hype is about. Google themselves has launched a couple of videos showcasing the possibilities with the […]

  • Optimal Webbnärvaro – Svar till Elias Betinakis

    En optimal webbnärvaro går generellt ut på att placera sig ett steg före konkurrenterna på en mognadstrappa som står i förhållande till den egna branschens, substituts eller andra framåt- eller bakåtintegrerande aktörers digitalisering. En mognadstrappa där översta steget är total digitalisering av såväl affär som, marknadsföring, organisation och operations.

  • The Ultimate Mood and Storyboard Application

    Creatives all over the world do their best to visualize their ideas when pitching clients, preparing for photo shoots or simply putting their ideas on paper. Apart from sketching with Sketchbook Pro I’ve personally been using Flickr and Google Image Search combined with Photoshop for ages. Lately I’ve added Bing and iStockphoto to the list. […]

  • Art, Technology and Nature Combined turns into a Future Innovation

    Thomas Traxler has got his shit together. Powered by nothing but sunlight and some threads, Thomas Traxler‘s “The idea of a tree project” shows us how objects can grow during the course of a day. His project more or less mimics the way a tree grows and changes shape due to weather conditions. Amazing. Thomas […]

  • 21 Steps on How to Monitor Your Brand Online and Keep Track of the Conversation

    And now to a very sensitive issue – monitoring. As some of you know my profession is leading brands into the future of communication. One of the more important parts of this is teaching them how to keep track of their own brands in the jungle of conversation. What are people saying about my brand, […]

  • Stage diving big balls that generate sound makes me smile

    Spotted this wonderful video showcasing a series of round balls that generate different sounds as the audience bounce them around. It’s a great ‘stunt’ performed by Intellijel in collaboration with Danjel Van Tijn at the Siggraph 2009. Give people something fun and innovative to interact with and they’ll do just that. Listen to the audience […]

  • TEDx Stockholm and Richard Gatarski's crowd sourcing experiment

    Mark this weekend in your calendars. TEDx is coming to Sweden and it’s thanks to Teo Härén & Fredrik Härén and Henrik Ahlén who’ve been the driving forces behind getting TEDx here. The first event is beeing held north of Stockholm with about 40 people attending the party and I’m honored to be one of […]

  • I adore a good wine. I love a great design. When these two collide I'm lost in the explosion!

    The Matsu’s wine triology, ‘El Pícaro’, ‘El Recio’ and ‘El Viejo’ Today on TheDieline I ran into the company ‘Vintae Luxury Wine Specialists’. Vintae is Spanish based company that specialize in top of the range and luxury wines. Not only do they have a great wine portfolio. Together with Spanish agency Moruba, they’ve designed some […]

  • In a rational way I should be blogging right now

    I found myself thinking. I need to write a blog post. After some browsing, thinking and searching I came to the conclusion. I don’t feel like writing a blog post right now. Not because I don’t know what to write about. But because I’m not inspired. I may find new energy tomorrow morning. I may […]

  • Mike Arauz got branding of tomorrow wired

    Found that great qoute by Mike Arauz on Advertising Lab

  • It’s really not that hard to win once you're prepared to make a fool out of yourself

    Linus Omark, the 6th most viewed video on YouTube this week. The 6th most viewed video worldwide on YouTube this week is a video showing Swedish hockey player Linus Omark, drafted 4th by the Edmonton Oilers, scoring in a friendly exhibition game against Switzerland. Linus does what every innovator would do – he dares to […]

  • Emotional vs rational messages in communication during global recession and Nigel Hollis

    Traveling at a 110 km per hour can be good for your brain or bad – you be the judge of that. I’m on my way home from Sälen and since I’m not behind the wheel I had some time over to get one of my thoughts out of my head. Thank god for 3G. […]

  • Please help Mr John Caswell

    I personally love the little things that makes life more fun. This light switch from designer John Caswell would ad more fun to an otherwise dead object. The only problem is that it’s not in production and John is currently looking for a manufacturer. So, if you know or are one. Build it! As many […]

  • On my way home from 6 days on Lanai, Hawaii that changed my life

    Me interacting with Mr Dolphin, his friends and family. I have spent the last 6 days on Lanai, Hawaii together with a good friend. We’ve been down here attending Tibco’s yearly conference. He as an employee and me as a guest. The optimum setup for me as I’ve focused more on exploring the island than […]

  • Skittles innovates their brand through the use of widgets and social media

    Candy brand Skittles have produced some kick ass TVC’s (Skittles leak being one of my favorites) through out the years and now they’re innovating the use of social media within fast moving consumer goods. This blog post started in my head after seeing this discussion below between two of the bloggers I’m following. David Armano […]

  • In order to create something timeless you’ve gotta set Megagoals.

    The Lamborghini Miura – A timeless car What makes an object timeless? Why in some cases do we all end up liking something so much so it rises from being just another thing to instead becoming culture? Certain designs and certain objects has that little extra, they’re like an open fire – we can’t stop […]

  • This is how you turn rational information into emotional entertainment

    Formula one may be the most expensive sport in the world and only a few of us will ever steer one of those super cars. This season a lot of new rule changes has been implemented in order to increase the interest for F1. But how do we, the everyday people understand what those changes […]

  • New York Times reinvents online newspaper reading with a new skimmering interface

    Yesterday ReadWriteWeb reported on a new article skimmer interface over at New York Times. It’s a stunning new way to let you quick read the headlines of all the latest news from the Sunday Times. The simplicity of this thing is striking yet genius. And as often before it turns out that content, usability and […]

  • What the font was that?

    That’s more or less the name of this ingenious new iPhone app that let’s you identify a font purely by taking a photo of it. I downloaded it and tried it – it’s a killer app! As often before it’s Miss Swissmiss that delivered the news about the Whatthefont app.

  • Why am I blogging about the Dundee Old Ancient Tartan?

    Last week was hell of a week with sick children. Then when they’ve finally have come out of it I woke up this morning with a fever. Now after coming home from a bunch of meetings I felt I have to update the blog with something intelligent, something that will appeal to my audience, something […]

  • Swedish Television launches a great online television site but where’s the social interaction?

    Earlier this morning I got an mail from Eva Hamilton, CEO of the Swedish Television letting me know that the SVT Play Beta was live. Obviously this must have been produced by some PR agency that decided my blog was a relevant target when spreading the news. But hey, aren’t we all suckers for spreading […]

  • Facebook deliver the crowds – CNN deliver the Barack Obama Inauguration

    So you think Superbowl is the event of the year. Well, think again. 427,563 confirmed guests and rising has signed on Facebook to be part of the Barack Obama Inauguration on January the 20th. It’s a brilliant move by CNN to create this hype around their live web casting of the event. It’s also interesting […]

  • Luxury champagne brand Krug pops up their brand and shows how entertain the masses with minimum effort

    Nothing is like it used to be. A couple of years back I attended a Luxury marketing meeting in Monte Carlo. I was one of the speakers and I spoke about how the younger generation will want to see more things from the Luxury brands than just good old beauty shots of expensive products. A […]

  • A lovely print campaign from IWC and Jung von Matt

    Oh how I’d love to be in the room when the Creative Directors Daniel Frericks and Götz Ulmer pitch their idea to a 140 year old watch brand. This is a business where people stick by the rules. Big ass photography where the product is the hero. All ads look more or less the same. […]

  • More ways to innovate the release of a new music album

    In Sweden, the government has recently voted on a new law that is supposed to make it harder for people to steal music. The lobbying for this new law has mainly been run by old school artist who want to protect their rights to their music. Younger artists that has grown up with the new […]

  • I'm watching you!

    The good old GIF format can still convey wonderful emotions. Found on FFFFound.

  • A structured visualization of planning

    Leon is a planner at the Stockholm branch of Jung von Matt. Apart from that he’s running a blog called The Planning Lab that I tap into on a daily basis. The other day he posted the sweet little visualization of the planning process above.  Here’s two recommendations. 1. Read Leons blog. 2. Download the planning […]

  • Amazon frustration free packaging adds consumer value and secures my future relation with my kids

    I criticized the jungle branded company a couple of days ago because of their new shopping experience. Now I’m going to send them of on a rocket to my 7th heaven. This video shows a new feature that they are implementing on their big sellers – the Amazon Frustration Free Packaging. Wow. That’s all I […]

  • Visualization makes things easy to understand

  • There is advertising that makes you go 'wow' and there is advertising that makes you 'noo'

    This wonderful piece made for The Red Cross and found on FFFFound definetely make me go wow. I’ve seen it before but then today it passed by my eyes when image browsing. To me this is a great idea executed in the smartest way. Wonderful thinking when it comes to integrating the logo inside the […]

  • A beautiful problem dressed in Pantone colors

    Rubriks Cube. A classic problem here portraited with pantone colors. Nice. Found at FFFFound.

  • BSmart creates a nice piece for IKEA

    A couple of days ago I spotted this TVC above. It made me happy. Simple & informative yet a fun movie that left a positive feeling right behind my nipples. I instantly started to browse the net to get hold of the movie and blog about it. I was kinda sad when I couldn’t find […]

  • A poster that I like

    Yahoo Pipes. A great tool. Right now I’m finalising my design RSS feed project where I’m putting more than 80 design blogs into a pipe and then after some filtering I can keep track of all 80. Sweet. Then as I tried it out today, out came a poster from a blog called DesignNotes. I […]

  • Communication is easy. It's the branding that is hard

    Right now I’m in the middle of some planning work for a Swedish brand. I’m spending quite a lot of time trying to understand their products, their target group and especially their brand. When I’m working I like to keep a drawing pad close to me so that I can write down and doodle on […]

  • Slutsnackat

    Kontaktmannen reflekterar under morgonen över debatten kring övergångsställesfigurens kön som tydligen blossat upp igen. Som vanligt är Kontaktmannen lika obstinat och onyanserad som vanligt. Och det är härligt! Den här bloggen rekommenderas med värme. Men, till saken. Låt oss en gång för alla ta slut på den här diskussionen om ‘Här Går Man’ ska vara […]

  • Blog of Ronnestam on iPhone

    If you got an iPhone. If you every now and then visit Ronnestam.com. Then you’re in for a new experience optimized for your phone. Thanks to the excellent plugin WPTouch I’ve made sure the site loads faster, is easier to use and renders better on iPhone. Now you know.

  • It's not only a Whale. It's the Right Whale.

      Nature. What a thing huh. Found this wonderful image of The Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) curiosly swimming around Brian Skerry armed with his camera. And yes. The name of the Whale is actually The Right Whale. National Geographic got the full story. When it comes to whales, the usual photo is a tail whipping through the […]

  • Jigsaw has risen from the dead and promotes SAW 5 on YouTube

    The creators behind SAW – one of the scariest horror movies ever has created a creepy video where Jigsaw, risen from the dead, promotes a competition on YouTube. A simple but smart concept where the man in the mask tells people to visit YouTube.com/SAW5. The video above featuring Jigsaw has gained 3,139,460 views in 6 […]

  • Steve Jobs – a natural born marketing man

    Wise word from Steve Jobs as he held his speech to the employees at Apple when returning to the company 1997. Thanks Alexander for the tip.   

  • IKEA makes relevant use of web-TV

    It makes me warm to see that companies out there are starting to utilize the possibilities that comes with social media. IKEA has definitely understood how to make good use of web-TV as they started their own IKEA.SE/TV where you are invited to upload your own interior decoration tips. What’s even better is the fact that they’ve […]

  • Should your creative idea be executed or not?

    Ms Swissmiss found a pretty good answer to that question on Frank Chimero’s, designer, illustrator and tinkerer from Missouri, USA, website.

  • Everything communicates

    We talk a lot about how logotypes, advertising, products, packaging, tone of voice, TV commercials, websites etc etc etc communicates the brand. But usually, the more business-oriented the purpose, the stiffer the creative executions. That’s why I just love to see infographics like these. How would the infographics look in your annual report next time if you were […]

  • What is this Social Media?

    Today I am: happy about iPhone 3G, working on signing people up, had Japanese Gyoza for lunch and talked to Björn. Björn, is a good friend of mine who tipped me about a YouTube video that outlines what Social Media is all about in a very pedagogic way. I liked it, so I blogged it. […]

  • Hitler vs Chaplin

    I spent yesterday looking through tons of ads, some good and some bad when I was doing my job in the jury for Guldeken, a local advertising competition in the south of sweden. However, the best print ad wasn’t to be found among the contenders. That one was sitting on the desktop of fellow jury […]

  • Just when people learned reflection

    Great communication is made by people who go their own way. And what’s cool with this latest ad-campaign by Apple for the new iTouch is that they do exactly that. When everyone around the world go crazy for drop-shadows and reflections (much inspired by Apple) these guys led by Steve Jobs turn 180° and introduce […]

  • Creatives begin by asking questions

    After reading a great presentation about improving interface design I ended up on Garrett Dimon’s site – The author. Once there his latest post got me to install a widget for the first time in ages. The widget is called “The Big Questions” and is a great mind opener for everyone who is involved in […]

  • Wikipedia on Barack Obama is 15,4 meters tall (43602px). Is that a new world record?

    I’m working on a presentation about digital marketing and as I’m gathering information on Barack Obama’s great digital campaign activities I stumbled upon the Wikipedia page about Mr Obama. And DAMN, these PR guys of his has done a great job of filling this page with information. I used Paparazzi (note, a little software tip […]

  • Old + New = Innovation

    I just love it when people grab old ideas and turn them into new. At first glance I thought it was an ad for Fritz Hansen and though WOW. But it’s just (I love it) a great poster by Blue Art Studio for you to hang on your wall. Got it through Notcot.

  • Let's start changing the world for the better

    In a world of war, violence, rape, isolation and loneliness we need to act. This is my modest contribution on a wednesday evening.

  • YouTube wishes Happy Valentine with cute logo

    This is nice. I visited Google, Apple and other sites that usually do this, but was disappointed to see that YouTube was the only one that kept the loving spirit going. If you have other Valentine logos let me know.

  • Simple but addictive

    Every now and then you get a link in your inbox that makes you play around more than usual. A lot of the times the idea is simple yet innovative. This little “Happy New Year” site made by an Agency called Mono is exactly that. Thanks Greg!

  • Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far

    Not me! That’s the title of Stefan Sagmeister’s new book. And judging by Stefan’s list of 20 maxims we should all have something to learn from his life. Taken from Creative Review “The book is based on a list of maxims made by the graphic designer on his “experimental year” in 2000, where he took […]

  • A good selection of the best Super Bowl 2008 ads

    Super Bowl is one of the greatest TV events of the year and this makes it the “oh how I wanna put my TVC on Super Bowl” shit for brand directors. However, the TVC’s that actually get on there is a selection of the greatest and the worst since money rules, not quality. Tom Cole […]

  • It's 28 years ago but he still makes me smile.

    I just happened to see one today when I was surfing the web. And I got all warmer. He’s timeless!

  • A bike for the guys at Davos to consider

    This is genius. It’s a bike called the Aquaduct and it’s a pedal powered vehicle that transports, filters, and stores water for the developing world. The Aquaduct was the winning entry in the Innovate or Die contest put on by Google and Specialized. The contest challenge was to build a pedal powered machine that has […]

  • The art of signing people up

    Tim Bednar at Turtle Interactive has written one of the most valuable posts/articles I’ve ever seen about signing people up. Tim has reviewed the sign up design and functionality of Freshbooks, Backpack, Dropsend, Vyew, Blinksale, Remember the Milk, Scrapblog, Crazy Egg, 30boxes, Blogger, del.icio.us, Flock, Give Meaning, Kiko, My Pick List, Titlez, CRM from Zoho, […]

  • Lego ad that makes you wanna play

    This is simplicity at it’s best. Jung von Matt in Germany shows how much you can do with very little. My only concern would be that this actually makes +30 year old kids wanna buy lego rather than 10 year old ones. However…the 30 year olds are the ones that pay 🙂 Source: Adsoftheworld.com

  • A campaign site for BMW motorrad

    BMW Motorrad presents the Beauty and The Beast, all embodied in one terrific creature. Foreign presented the website. BMW Motorrad was ready to prove to the world that German design is in all ways equal to that of their celebrated technological prominence. Combining the true aesthetics of beauty and power, the R 1200 S proves […]