Matmut insurance are Racists

Wow, I just had to post this! I’m still in a shock and can’t really understand what happened. Yesterday morning I woke up and I felt this is going to be a good day. I went to register our car that I bought from Germany few weeks back. I had a help from my Salomon colleague to sort out the papers and making sure that I have everything I need to register the car. All went great and I got an temporary document that will be valid for 1 month so I will be able to drive the car.

Now here is the deal, like in every country you need to have an insurance at least a basic that covers the damage to the other vehicle if an accident happens. As I already have an house insurance in this company called Matmut, I thought why no consolidate everything to one company it might even bring some cost savings eventually. Here is when it started to go wrong, my colleague called the company on my behalf (as I don’t speak French just yet) and started to explain what I needed for the car and a little bit of the history of my insurances in Finland. The person at Matmut collected the details of my previous cars and insurances and promised to call back after validating with the manager. Few minutes later we got the phone call and they dropped the bomb! They are not going to give me the insurance as I don’t speak any French? SERIOUSLY? is that a reason not to give a person an insurance? I call that racist and I can’t believe this is happening in european union. Also they were worried about my previous cars not matching our new cars horse powers? What the heck has that to do with the insurance? I’ve owned 3 cars previously from which 1 with my girlfriend and we never crashed a car before and to be honest Finland’s driving license education system is probably the best in the world not to mention the conditions we are coming from 4 seasons anyone? I’m in a shock and I can’t believe this is really happening.

So my conclusion, if you are living in France or planning to move here you should ether change your insurance immediately away from Matmut or in case of planning to move here DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER taking Matmut as your insurance company.

Time to say good bye and hello world!

Wow! What a ride! I joined Nokia more than 5 years ago as a summer intern and I was, and still am, completely passionate about working in the digital field for the company. I’m sad to leave all the great friends I’ve met during these amazing 5 years at Nokia! It’s been an honor and pleasure to work with you.

I feel it’s about time to do something else and in a different environment. I’ve always dreamed about moving abroad and living in another country and experiencing a different culture. Salomon offered me a position in their digital team as a marketing communications manager. When I received this amazing job offer I couldn’t resist! This means I’ll be moving to France,  Annecy during the end of November. I’m really stoked about the opportunity to work for a company that is close to my heart.

I would also like to use this opportunity to thank few people who has helped me during these amazing 5 years. Firstly Arto Joensuu, you have been the one that has believed in me and offered me the possibility to show my competences! I’m grateful to have you as a friend; thank you so much. Jussi-Pekka Erkkola it has truly been amazing working together with you for the past 4 years. There is no other person with such a great pool of knowledge and understanding of digital than you. I’ve learned more from you than from any school I’ve gone to and really appreciate that! You’re a true friend! Just to name few others: Dan, Jussi, Solja, Russell, Mikko and Helena, without you I wouldn’t be here today, so once again I’m really grateful what you have done for me. Also not to forget some great agency people I have had the privilege to know: 1000heads, Luxus, Futurice, Dicole, R/GA, N2 & FarFar (rip) I love you guys!

I’m also setting up a new blog where me and Katja will be covering the life abroad in France. It’s called forgetfinland.com (thank Stefan for the name) and no its not about forgetting you guys, it will be about making comparisons living down there.

Nespresso conceptual stores fails to deliver

I admit it, i’m a huge coffee fan no doubts about that like most of Finns are. Due to this reason we have a Nespresso machine which works with the “bullets” you can purchase from Nespresso boutiques or concept stores. As I live in Finland and we don’t have the opportunity to have one of these shops in Finland, we always buy some of those coffees once traveling.

Nespresso boutiques, are build for people to experience their coffee. Even some blogs are saying ‘the central to the Boutique Bar experience is the opportunity to interact with Coffee Specialists who will help visitors recreate their Boutique experience at home by guiding them through the varied selection of award-winning single-serve coffee machines and 12 Grands Crus premium coffee blends’. This is all great and what else you would expect from stores like this. Well all didn’t go so well for us, on a nice lovely day at Nice we decided to visit the store to get some coffee. The place is full of different kinds if coffees so help is definitely needed. Usually in situations like this you would assume to get the possibility to taste the latest flavors, this wasn’t the case at the Nespresso boutique in Nice. We walked in to the store and asked to taste but the answer from the so called expert was clear ‘no tasting in our store’ you need to buy first…seriously WTF Nespresso! How on earth you can first buy and then taste is there a return policy? And this douche bag didn’t even say sorry or try to explain why. Anyways we decided to leave the store immediately due to the bad customer service. I will also recommend to avoid the Nice store or any other Nespresso stores with the same attitude.

How social technologies will change the Fashion Business

Few days I was watching TV (so analog I know) and the Finnish version of “Next Top Model” was on. I started to think about how Social technologies are changing behaviors and how people are in control of expressing their opinions publicly. Now all this has changed the way we do marketing from one way broadcasting sales funnel approach to conversational 2 way communication model. All these forces businesses to be more open and transparent or better words to describe it would be real & authentic.

(thanks @tar1na)

Now talking about Fashion business. Everything you see is fake but they are real, so what Fashion business is doing is making real persons fake persons. If you ever seen the show you know what I mean. Theres plenty of footage from behind the scenes where you see these young girls without their makeup and in the next scene you see them covered on stuff and you are not even able to recognize who they are. There are some companies in the Fashion business who I think has the right approach. Makia is just one example but just by looking at their latest catalogue, they use real people which I think is brilliant. Yes those shots are fancy and cool but at the same time you can feel the realness which puts the brand in a strong position.

I’m not a futurist but IMHO I think we will see Fashion business moving towards real people real situations. It might take a generation change in the business or adaption of these social technologies which are accelerating the change. Great example of a Social Network for fashion is the Lookbook.nu which has been growing pretty rapidly since 2008.

Another great illustration of people sharing they fashion style with others, not driven by any brand just real people in real situations willing to give a glimpse of their own style just brilliant.

The New Dorks needed

Simply brilliant video from the Pantless Knights for Grasshopper.com. IMHO theres actually a valid point in it, new generation with their new behaviors are doing some serious business and money through the world wide web. These new dorks are definitely equally competent doing proper business. You have to be your self in the web business rather then hiding behind “the mask” it’s actually mandatory to be genuine & humble.

We see more and more people being SoMe experts…well if you say so on your twitter or linkedin profile but really, I think folks that are born using computers “natives” has a great potential doing something big in t he future. IMHO we need more new dorks in our business world

Well enough of talking enjoy the vid

Travel Guides reality show (Matkaoppaat) social media

It’s been now already several weeks since the first Travel Guides (Matkaoppaat) reality show episode startet in Finnish channel4. It has started some great movements over the internet and I’m just going to analyze some of it, especially the impact. Overall I think it has been fascinating to watch, but the question remains, does it really increase sales?

In the first episode an old man (Veikko) is a bit lost and is really angry not finding the right bus and is complaining about it to the detur guide. Enough of words have a look at your self (sorry it’s in Finnish but you’ll get the picture)

Now this is where the fun started Nelonen created a fan page for Veikko on Facebook which claims that once the group gets 100 000 fans Nelonen (channel4) will buy Veikko another trip. The reality show is just hilarious and I think most of the younger generation watching it, would never ever go for a package trip. It’s just that sarcasm that makes it work, people are loving it (some episodes has been a little bit boring without any action). Now, what happened to Veikko’s fan page? It rocked to the skies and it has now over 30k fans (pretty good when you only have 5m people living in the country) and Nelonen decided to drop the number from 100k to 30k, which means Veikko earned a free trip to somewhere paid by Nelonen. Now which makes the whole fan page interesting is that when you genuinely are trying to do something good for someone instead of seeking for attention (spam people) you get attraction. People are more willing to join something that will do good instead going to a channel, page or group where you immediately know it’s just for broadcasting information. Great illustration of that broadcast model is the new Audi Finland fan page which has a great competition (don’t get me wrong) where you can win an Audi A3 when they reach 50k fans. The deepest intention is to get visibility and as many people as possible so they can what? add value? Current status for them is around 20k fans. I would bet that around 90% of these fans don’t care about Audi they are just for the sake of winning the car, so the question is: What happens to them afterwards?

Enough of analyzing how to run successful facebook page and see what’s there for Nelonen vs. Detur? Nelonen has announced the sold the rights for the reality show for multiple countries which equals money…check… Loads of people are watching the show which equals more advertising which equals money… check… now the remaining question is what does Detur get out from this? I would assume they are the “sponsor” (equals money for Nelonen) but will this sell more Detur trips? My gut feeling says No at least amongst the younger generation it might even decrease their sales. What about older generation? are they looking the show in the similar way as younger generation with some sarcasm? I don’t know and time will tell.

Who said winter?

It’s been snowing now 3 days straight and still Helsinki hasn’t cleaned up the streets properly! Not sure whether this is due to lack of equipment or resources but it’s kinda out of control. It’s quite impossible to find space for your car to park but you can’t complain for having a proper winter finally. This is probably the first time in 15 years since we had this much of snow which is great.