Dear Brands, build fanboys and not customers

The attention economy demands you build fan boys and not customers.

If you had a care-o-meter, most of your average mass marketing messages do not elicit enough attention from most if not all consumers.

Apple has fanboys who will kill for their brand. It’s even part of pop culture called mac envy

Walmart might be considered too cheap, but they serve their market exactly well. So do budget airlines.

The key is not what everyone thinks, but what your actual consumers think and then take their experience to a delightful new level.

At SIME, we asked marketing managers of the major brands today, what and how they built their fanboys. And we collected their response in this video below as part of the SIME Brand Stories collection.

So what’s your story?

Creativity and the Internet lived happily ever after

This amazing campaign ranks right up there as one of the best campaigns I have seen. Created by Finnish company Hasan Partners, they touched all points of the internet and marketing ecosystem and made it work including banner campaigns. I know. Truly, creativity and internet can live happily ever after.

The New Industry Transformers at SIME Stockholm

Innovation has become the name of the game. Get it or not, if you do not innovate you do not play the game any more. And innovation was typically never associated closely with large players, or semi-large organizations. And disruption is an identical twin to innovation. If all that was true, the perfect innovation and disruption came from the idea of 1 entrepreneur and his sole-ability to pull his weight, coax and cajole friends to be part of the disruption and, et voila was born disruption. The business school  classic example is budget airlines – strip the offerings and charge 20% of the ticket price for those who start looking at everything apart from flying as luxury.

And the new industry transformers within the digital arena – the Spotify’s, the Vente-Privee’s, the layar’s, the Money Super Market’s of this world all were started off with a great idea, and not from within Ericsson or Nokia or even Apple. But that said, the Apple’s and Amazon’s are still being innovative and not lagging behind the trend as was usually the case before. May be its the technology dispersion or more smarter leaders at the helm, or an entrepreneurial soil within the company, your guess is as good as mine.

Read the most innovative large companies ranking here

At SIME, we want to take you on an exciting safari of case studies of disruption and cool models that have shaken the way we play this game. This is planned on day 1 after the first coffee break. You can take a look at the agenda here

Welcome to 2 days of innovation and trend setting ideas. Welcome to 2 days of SIME Stockholm

REGISTER HERE

Presenting to you SIME Non-Profit

A landmark day within the SIME Ecosystem as we spawn out a new arm called SIME Non-Profit, committed to making the world a better place, one step at a time. Its amazing when you think about it how one simple idea can grow in your head like a virus. It goes back to Claudia Gonzales and her profound influence on the audience at SIME -09 and most importantly the moderator Ola Ahlvarsson and the SIME team.

Claudia Gonzalez, heading the PR for the UN agency for refugees, UNCHR, used new and innovative ways to maximize the organization’s media outreach, resulting in an enormous growth and attention to the support system for refugees all around the world.

But to think about it, not all socially inclined organizations have the right channels to get their noble causes out to the people and companies who want to support them. When talking to different non-profit organizations, we realized that a large portion of their resources (time, money etc.) are devoted to getting the attention and eye-balls through the traditional, expensive, media ways, which is not completely in sync with the efficient technology and digital opportunities that are available to all of us today.

And this is where SIME wants to play a part. So this year at SIME Stockholm on November 17 – 18, we have one focus on the non-profit segment whereby we invite several organizations and their change-makers to understand the digital landscape, learn from case studies and further help their cause by channeling their resources through the right avenues. In short, a digital focus for non-profit organizations and social entrepreneurs.

SIME Non-Profit Summit

This year at SIME Stockholm, we will give hundreds of people working to help others access to a free SIME Non-Profit Summit. In the company of thought leaders and business executives, we present phenomenal case studies and hands-on advice to help implement social causes and take their reach to millions more through the interconnectedness of the web. While there are many causes channeled online, no structured format exists. We believe learning from experts and from each other can help reduce chances of failure and bring out the best in every organization.

If you are an organization working towards a social cause, you can apply for an invitation here.

APPLY HERE

What then happens at SIME Stockholm?

During the first day, we launch the SIME Non-Profit summit at 14.00. The invited delegates and entrepreneurs from socially devoted organizations will then be presented with case studies ranging from the Obama campaign to best practices on Facebook and other social networks.

While the rest of the delegates will be attending the workshops of the choice, the Non Profit delegates during the first day will be attending talks and sessions with speakers on some of the best case studies of using online channels for a social cause. The second day, we will mark the workshops that we believe will have an influence on and can help non-profit organizations with a green dot.

This is a new needle in the clock that’s got us going. And we think its a great cause to further the role of the digital opportunities.

Agenda for SIME Stockholm

Welcome to 2 days of inspiration, and a commitment to making the world a better place. Welcome to SIME Non-Profit

Meet the nominee of the day (36), Livebookings, Sweden

Company Bio

Livebookings helps make restaurants more profitable by delivering customers through an online, real-time booking service. Livebookings provide restaurants with the tools to build a customer database, run offers, be listed on hundreds of websites, generate more bookings and improve the way they manage their reservations.

Country

Sweden

Website

http://livebookings.net

SIME Profile

http://sime.nu/09/awards/rising-stars-of-the-north/livebookings/

Snapshot

Jury Motivation

Swedish company with a good shot of making it on the global table reservation market.

Meet the SIME jury here

Couple of days to go, the wait cannot get any tenser. May the best folks win!

Meet the nominee of the day (34), Mr. Green, Sweden

Company Bio

Mr Green is the fastest growing online gambling company in Norway and Sweden, in spite of a very late start (2008) and fierce competition. A focus on design, look and feel, brand uniqueness and responsible gaming and an ethical gambling offering made the difference. The company is currently rolled out over Europe (SE, AT, NO ready, UK, FI and ES happening this fall). Internetworld rated Mr Green Sweden’s best gambling web site beating Svenska Spel (national monopoly), Betsson, Expekt and Unibet.

Country

Sweden

Website

https://www.mrgreen.com/

SIME Profile

http://sime.nu/09/awards/rising-stars-of-the-north/mr-green/

Snapshot

(more…)

Meet the nominee of the day (33), Burt, Sweden

Company Bio

Burt builds easy-to-use products that inspires and enables better and more creative advertising:

• Copybox The world’s first word processor created with the digital copywriter in mind.
• Meme Machine Enables quick and cost-efficient creation of ”real-time ads”, ads that optimize the message dynamically for each viewer
• Rich A campaign analytics tool for digital media focused on creative agencies

Country

Sweden

Website

http://byburt.com/

SIME Profile

http://sime.nu/09/awards/rising-stars-of-the-north/bur

Snapshot

(more…)

Meet the Nominee of the Day (28), WreckaMovie, Finland

Company Bio

Star Wreck Studios is a film studio that is specialized in blending the Internet and the film industry together by unleashing the creative potential of Internet communities, and changing the whole chain of filmmaking. Through the launch of its new online service www.wreckamovie.com, the company makes it possible to collaboratively produce professional quality A/V content of all types: from short films to feature films and to all distribution screens – from Internet and mobile to film theater.

Country

Finland

Website

http://www.wreckamovie.com/

SIME Profile

http://sime.nu/09/awards/rising-stars-of-the-north/wreckamovie/

Snapshot

Online Footprints:

Twitter: @wreckamovie

Jury Motivation

Ok it is niche, but what can you do when you sense such a level of energy?

Meet the SIME Jury

We say wreck it up for SIME, looking forward for more creative energy from these cool chaps. Good luck guys!

Meet the Nominee of the Day (27) Oculusai, Sweden

Company Bio

Every day, a huge and rapidly increasing amount of images are uploaded on the internet. Assuring that these images are aligned with site policy is a great challenge for many sites. Slow manual pre-upload validation of images result in long waiting times for disappointed end-users. Manual post-upload validation results in inappropriate content on the sites. Sites must choose between long upload times due to manual validation or the existence of inappropriate content.

Country

Sweden

Website

http://www.oculusai.com/

SIME Profile

http://sime.nu/09/awards/rising-stars-of-the-north/oculusai/

Snapshot

(more…)

Meet the nominee of the day (25), WebofTrust, Finland

Company Bio

Web of Trust is a unique community-based safe surfing tool that uses an intuitive traffic-light style rating system to help Internet users stay safe as they search, browse, and shop online. The WOT security add-on provides safety ratings to search results when using Google, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, and other popular sites, helping people protect their computers and personal information. Web site ratings are continuously updated by millions of members of the WOT community and from numerous trusted sources, such as phishing site listings. The free Internet security add-on works with Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers and is a free download.

Country

Finland

Website

http://www.mywot.com/

SIME Profile

http://sime.nu/09/awards/rising-stars-of-the-north/web-of-trust/

Snapshot

Jury Motivation

Good open source approach, backed by Monty of MySQL fame.

Meet the SIME jury here

Good luck guys, looking forward to a more protected virtual world.