Sturegallerian opens first crowd sprouting store in Sweden
- impressive discounts on exclusive shopping when Swedens first “group buy” store opens.
In the midst of global financial turmoil where many retailers have taken a blow Sturegallerian, a leading premium shopping destination in Stockholm, Sweden, introduces its own ”crowd sprouting” shop.

Monday May 4, the store Together opened its doors in the fashionable galleria in the Swedish capital. The store offers substantial discounts on products from Sturegallerian’s exclusive shops and boutiques.
Today there is a number of web sites such as, crowdsprout.com, which offers discounts to groups where a lot of pepole are interested in the same product. Now this concept is introduced in Sweden as a physical store, and that in one of Sweden’s most exclusive shopping destinations.

– ”Despite the financial crisis Sturegallerian is doing well. However, we believe that we need to stay on our toes and constantly be on the look out for new things. We see this as an exciting experiment to show the wide range of products and services offered in Sturegallerian”, says Pernilla Karvia, head of the shopping centre and responsible for the initiative.
The store will offer around 30 products every day and will be updated daily with new offers. In addition to all the shops in Sturegallerian, the exclusive gym and spa, Sturebadet, and the many restaurants will also offer discounts.

In the store, the merchandise will be on display and customers can submit their interest for a specific product or service. If enough people announced their interest the customer will then receive a text message saying that he or she can pick up the product at the store. Every offer is valid for a limited time only.
For those interested you need to be quick. The store will only be open during the month of May.
The idea behind Together and the design of the store is a collaboration between Sturegallerian and retail and brand specialists BAS Brand Identity.

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bloggar om: shopping, stockholm, sturegallerian, retail

The new book ‘The Gort Cloud: The Invisible Force Powering Today’s Most Visible Green Brands’ chronicles the marketing and brand building experiences of America’s leading green companies. Author Richard Seireeni explains how 23 successful ‘green’ companies like Southwest Windpower, Michelle Kaufman Designs and Tesla Motors built their brands, and how they used an invisible marketing force to reach the green community.

During his research, Seireeni discovered an invisible network that delivers partners and customers to green businesses with little or no use of conventional advertising media. He calls this network The Gort Cloud, describing it as an aspect of Web 2.0, viral marketing, crowdsourcing and social media. “But it’s also much more than that,” he says. “The Gort Cloud is millions of people connecting to green information through a vast, interconnected community. It’s an amazing business resource for honest green companies. It can deliver partners and a market at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising, and with greater credibility. But woe the greenwasher, because The Gort Cloud also has the power of collective peer review, and will come down harshly on exaggerators.”

Seireeni states that the biggest challenge facing aspiring green brands isn’t developing product ideas, but getting the word out. And not just to customers. “Ecopreneurs must also get the word out to prospective partners, investors and employees, to upstream suppliers, to downstream distributors and retailers, and to the green media including business news, consumer publications, bloggers and trendspotters. This normally requires a major investment in target marketing, list development, message crafting and media placement.” 

The author says most green start-up businesses simply don’t have the budget to compete on the level of a Proctor & Gamble or a General Motors, and don’t have the resources to cut through traditional, clutter-clogged media channels. “But luckily for green business, there is another way to reach Main Street America and that way is The Gort Cloud.”

In the process of documenting the marketing and brand building experiences of these leading green businesses, the author discovered that all of his subjects were using personal relationships within the green community to build their brands. As Seireeni explains, “to test their products, they were using connections with green academics, NGOs and certifying agencies. To source raw materials, they were networking with green technology firms and sustainable resource suppliers. When it came time to look for investors, they found them within the green investment community. And when they were ready to sell, they found distributors, wholesalers, retailers and end users among the environmentally aware.”

But how is this type of networking any different to traditional networking? “Nothing in this world is new,” the 30-year design and brand building veteran states. “It’s all a matter of degree and evolution. Word of mouth . . . viral marketing . . . networking . . . have been around since man built cities. So while the means are the same, the technology for delivering network messages has evolved. And of course, the mission - in the case of The Gort Cloud - is new: to save what’s left of the environment we have known as a species.”

And that’s a message and mission that can no longer be invisible.

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Andra bloggar om: bok, böcker

Uniqueness is one of the most classic arguments when creating and presenting a new logotype for a company or organisation. Although we see a growing number of conflicts where companies take legal action when accusing the other party of stealing or copying their corporate symbol. 

John Mellkvist, Creative Director of Stockholm based graphic design company JohnLook.com with business cards as signature product, has long experience of working with graphic identity. In Resumé, Sweden’s leading media news magazine he explains this new phenomenon.

- It’s a strong trend today that a company finds their logotype used by another organisation. On top of this, media has become interested in this and reports these things more often than before says John Mellkvist.

A good example of this was when two dentists from Cheltenham, UK last year were sued by Fashion giant Lacoste for using a similar Crocodile as their trademark. The significant outcome of this was that the two dentists won this prestigious legal battle.

-The problem is that many design companies still use the unique as an argument as we sell graphic identity. Before internet this was possible because a lot of similar symbols lived their life without meeting each other, says John Mellkvist.

One of the most talked about logotype issues last year was when Norska Posten (Norwegian Post) launched their new logotype, which including the advertising campaign had a cost of about 30 million euros. 

As soon as it was presented it was observed that London Clearing House used an almost identical logotype. Brand consultants demanded that the logotype of Norska Posten should be stopped immediately.

John Mellkvist believes very few logotypes are ripped off deliberately. The reason behind the visual conflicts we see is according to Mellkvist  that designers as a group are consuming the same media, picking up the same trends etcetera, but also that there are very few ”vacant” graphic expressions for a company to have.

-I’m not saying that well functioning logotypes ought to be thrown in the bin. I’m talking about all the new brand names that is yet to be designed. They will be nice, suitable, edgy etcetera. But unique? I doubt it.

Article in Swedish about a recent case. And another one.

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Andra bloggar om: marknadsföring, reklam, grafisk design, kommunikation, logotyp, design

I’m in the jury for a competition called WOOD, PAPER, CHECKMARK: design an awareness campaign for sustainable forestry. The competition is about to create elements of a consumer call-to-action campaign to buy FSC-certified products as a means of protecting forests around the world.

It runs until January 13th. If you are interested to participate follow the link to Design 21 social design network.

December 6th saw the opening of Gestalten’s one month only pop-up store in Berlin’s Mitte district. Due to overwhelming feedback, Gestalten Temporary will keep its doors open for another month. They’ll kick off again in the New Year on January 2nd and be open until January 31st. Gestalten Temporary offers an exciting range of Gestalten products including inspiring books on design, architecture, graphic design, contemporary art and a collection of designer toys. The store opening also marks the debut of Gestalten Art Editions. They’re collaborating with the best young artists and designers to offer artworks featured in their publications as high quality Art Prints produced with state-of-the-art digital LAMBDA technology. 

Andra bloggar om: design, konst, bok, böcker, berlin
 

Sissi Edholm and Lisa Ullenius are two graphic designers based in Stockholm, Sweden who work together under the name Edholm Ullenius. They met at Beckmans School of Design in Stockholm and have been a team since then. Their work include posters, book covers, fabric prints and post cards + a lot more. Over the years they have worked with The Museum of National Antiquities and Museum of modern art in Stockholm, Bookbinders design and IKEA to mention a few.

I have pasted some images below of their interesting work and clever ideas. I like the playfulness and the humanistic feeling a lot. It almost reminds me of the work of the two Swedish maestros Jan Melin and Anders Österlin.

Andra bloggar om: design, grafisk design, reklam, marknadsföring, humanistisk

For the January issue of Dazed & Confused, the magazine asked everyone under 18 and living in the UK to get in touch with an idea for an article about what it means to be young and British today. With the idea landing on homepages from Myspace to Channel 4, the inboxes at Dazed & Confused soon started to buckle under the strain… so, they thought they asked the readers to do the cover as well.

All of the fashion for this issue was shot over three days by designer Hedi Slimane, on a portfolio of British youth street-cast from various locations around London. You can now download a Dazed cover template and three of Hedi’s images. If you want to use one (or all) of them, go for it – they’re yours to do with as you like. You can do what you want with the images or use a completely different image of your own, that’s fine, too. The idea is to get an attractive and revealing Dazed cover that says something about what it’s like to be young and British today. If you’re from a different country, you’re welcome to take part and just make a cover about what it’s like to be young today in your country.

If you are under 18 send all entries (JPEG format, ideally) to stephen.ll@dazedgroup.com by Thursday November 20th and be sure to include your name, age and where you live. Happy designing.

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Andra bloggar om: media, mode, fotografi, hedi slimane

If you are a regular reader of the David Report blog you know I’m not a big fan of commercials. But this one is an exception.

Andra bloggar om: politik, reklam, marknadsföring, usa, presidentvalet, barack obama, usa-valet

Acne Paper is published twice a year by Acne and is a collaboration between Acne Jeans, Acne Film, Acne Digital and Acne Creative.

Issue No 7 opens and ends with an extraordinary portfolio: A pair of 15th century tapestries were recently restored by the Royal Manufacturers De Wit in Mechelen. These two hangings are probably the most important from the late Middle Ages to have survived. The 20 page presentation consists of fragments which render the grandeur of the tapestries, telling in great intricacy and detail the mythological lifespan of the Macedonian king Alexander.

Other features in this issue includes: interviews with Nan Goldin, Dr. Valerie Steele, William Burlington, Richard Purdey, Rupert Thomas. Photographic work by Serge Leblon, Katerina Jebb and Richard Burbridge.

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Andra bloggar om: media, tidning, acne, mode

As a company, you can choose either to just be on the internet, or to fit in your commercial offer so it captures all the opportunities that a full feathered internet concept will give you. Communication pro John Mellkvist, entrepreneur behind the design company JohnLook.com and the fashion community SaleRacer.com shares his best advice on how to build and market a brand on internet.

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1. Find your signature product
Hermès has their scarf, Lacoste has their polo shirt. Identify your signature product or service. Internet is big and thick so you need a sharp edge.
A collaboration with another specialist – from a different field of business – will create a unique offer as well a big surprise, that will draw media attention.

2. Make sure your welcome page communicates. A commercial web concept needs to be much more direct compared to a physical company. What are you selling, what’s the price of it?  Write out your concept in editable text (i e not flash or similar) on page one as well as in the headline/frame of your web page. Display your concept in a 1,2,3-process. Don’t sit on your information. Share it! This will make you an authority.

3. Create a blog linking to your web page. Or even better, collaborate with a well known blogger blogging from your page. This will make your content more dynamic and increase search.

4. Google Adwords and Analytics Good for traffic, but be careful with your budget – use only a few keywords if you don’t want to pay for a lot of irrelevant clicks. Monitor it with Google Analytics.

5. Organise your e-mail network and communicate what you do continuously. Create an e-mail signature explaining your concept in a short line of text. Did someone write or say something good about you? – enclose hyperlinks. And don’t neglect Facebook. It’s easy to call it an adult toy. But also easy enough to use as a marketing tool.

6. Be brave – contact the best in your field. If you get along, ask for a quote or a good luck to publish on your site.

7. Think local. Just because everyone can see you doesn’t mean they will. Instead, start by building success in a small community, and go from there.

8. Overkill. As a webshop, replace human touch with small or big surprise, like the amuse (or the birthday cake) at the restaurant.

9. Banner advertising. Good for an ”I’ve seen that” effect. But before counting clicks consider; how many banners do you really click on?

10. Get real. The more internet based your concept is, the more it will gain from an ambassador in the real world.

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Andra bloggar om: internet, marknadsföring, reklam, branding, varumärke