Ahlgrens bilar: Volvo and more

Some time ago I wrote about Ahlgrens bilar. The highlight was how they made three products out of one by simply packing each colour in separate bags.



I also listed some other related candy that was manufactured under the same brand.

Volvo + Ahlgrens = TRUE
The main reason I write this update is the news that Volvo and Ahlgrens are launching a joint campaign. Candy cars in the format of the Volvo model V70 are launched as "Sweden's most environmental car".

I like this type of cross-brand campaigns. And what can be more natural than a joint effort between two of the biggest car brands in Sweden? And at the same time surfing the environmental wave.

But why did they mix all colours in the bag? Shouldn't all cars be of the green flavour?





One size doesn not fit all
Also, as a follow up to my earlier post. I failed to notice that the main product (Ahlgrens bilar) is available in multiple sizes. At least five different bags (30, 55, 70, 125 and 160 g).


Now also "sweat and sour"
And finally. Yet another sub-brand of Ahlgrens bilar is spotted. The "sursockrade" version.

Hm, some candy anyone? I'll probably stick to the mainstream version myself, but will at least try the new alternatives. What about you?

DN-phone. Not iPhone or Gphone.

Or "DN-mobilen" in Swedish. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter today launched the DN-phone. Read the article (in Swedish) here.

In summary; it's a Nokia phone (pity it wasn't a SonyEricsson) with a subscription from the Swedish operator Telenor. Sold by Dagens Nyheter, and only to current subscribers of the paper version of the newspaper.



The converged arena
So - what's this? A newspaper acting as a mobile operator? Basically that is what the proposition looks like in general. That it is actually a "real" operator behind it is not that important.

This is another example of the converging and new media landscape. That newspapers have a web site is an old example of this. Today you also see the next steps of this, like newspapers being a provider of blog spaces. Also to a large degree you see interaction with readers being enabled. As one example comments to articles are often enabled.

Mobile services are not new either. Mobile versions of newspaper web sites are there. You can subscribe to newflashes via SMS or MMS. And you can send in news via eg MMS and get featured in the newspaper.

This is however the first time I have seen a newspaper phone being marketed!

The packaging
The neat lesson from the DN phone story is how an existing product (phone+subscription) is modified slightly, rebranded and brought to market through a new channel. They have essentially applied a new business model and go-to-market model for an existing product, and with that opened up a completely new part of the arena.

A lesson similiar to the one about repackaging of candy cars.

The reaction
Apparently the interest was high enough to generate a large number of calls to the switchboard. Will be interesting to see the next chapter on this story.

The numbers
The subscription costs SEK 199 per month ("call-for-all") and must be kept for at lest 12 month.
The same phone with similiar subscription (SEK 199/month and minimum 12 month) would cost SEK 1170 if bought from Telenor directly.

With the DN option you basically get the phone for free (save SEK 1170) and you get free access to the mobile version of the DN web site (mobil.dn.se).

mobil.dn.se
It was only a few days ago that DN also launched an improved version of their mobile site. What I like the most with it is how they use the vertical scrolling in the browser to display comic strips. Try it! Might not be new, but it was the first time I saw comics in the mobile in this way.

I and my blog qouted by mainstream media

Metro quoted me in relation to the Facebook uptake in Sweden. Metro even recommended this blog.

Is this good? I guess so, it is always nice when you get reactions to your blog. Of course for your ego, and also for the brands of this blog and myself. The online article have generated some traffic to this blog, but I still get the majority of the traffic from other sources.

I must say the actual quote might not be that valuable. "You can see yourself that it [Facebook usage] is growing. You find more and more people you know [in Facebook]. Facebook is the only site that is really broad right now. On other social networks you find considerable less people you know".

I also discussed the accuracy of the figures with Metro. This was not at all discussed in the article.

Two of the questions around this:

• The figures are probably based on registered users. This is fine, but does not say anything about the number of active users.


• These numbers are not available for all countries (see Jeff Pulver's post for a list of the countries). Why? Do the other countries have significant less users? Or are there other reasons for countries not to be included in the list?

Anyway, Facebook is widely used in Sweden. See my post on that Sweden passed 1 million users here and the post with detailed statistics from Sweden here.

And finally. I was a bit disappointed that the paper verion of the article was shorter and didn't mention me or this blog... That's life I guess, better luck next time.

Update 071109: Turns out that I was quoted in the paper version after all! Not in the "mainstream", green and daily edition, but is the purple, weekly, edition called 'Metro Teknik'.

Over one million Facebook users in Sweden

After my post last week with some details of the Facebook statistics in Sweden I noticed today that Sweden now has over one million Facebook users. At least according to the same source I used last time.
And if you look at Alexa you see that Facebook is number two among the most visited sites in Sweden.

So, it is not a surprise that Expressen, a major newspaper targeting the broad population, offers "share on Facebook" as an option for each article on the web.

Update 071107: Also Aftonbladet, the other "major tabloid newspaper" in Sweden, has a "show on Facebook" option for the articles. Thanks Bengt for mentioning this in a comment. I actually looked at this at Aftonbladet when writing the post, but apparently missed it.