The theme of this year’s edition of Sime Stockholm - one of Sweden’s most important tech events - was "Collaborating with Technology to Evolve Humanity". During the two-day event, there were vastly diverse panel discussions and talks about everything from war and peace, and what it means to business, to inner development goals of global leaders. The subject of AI also came up a lot from several perspectives: AI and cybersecurity, AI and parenting, AI in the entertainment business, etc.
When the time came for Vaimo’s Co-Founder and Chief Creative Director, PJ Utsi, to take the stage, we got to embark on a refreshing and grounding journey to northern Sweden, seeing how growing up reindeer herding in harsh conditions in Norrland, Sweden, forged some of the skills needed to build Vaimo.
The Vaimo Story
It might be hard to believe when you see the IT entrepreneurs that they are today, but two of Vaimos founders did in fact grow up in Sami reindeer herding families in Norrland, Sweden. As we got to experience during Vaimo’s talk at Sime, reindeer herding makes for amazing footage of northern Sweden's impressive mountain panoramas. In reality, however, it’s a lot less glamorous. The conditions in these stunning landscapes are tough, and surviving in them requires and forges high levels of resourcefulness, grit and team building skills.
These abilities contributed to starting and building Vaimo and they laid the foundation for our core values. Vaimo means heart in Sami and our company name is a symbol for the passion and conviction that we put into everything we do. It also represents the fact that our work is something that is core to the companies we work with.
Highlights from Vaimo’s current projects
The digital landscape, much like a frozen mountain, is beautiful and full of opportunities, but it can also be quite tough and gnarly, especially for someone with little experience, poor equipment and/or an amateur guide. Today Vaimo guides clients such as the outdoors gear brand Helly Hansen, and Swedish consumer electronics and home appliances chain Elon, through an increasingly complex world of Digital experiences.
Content for Commerce with Helly Hansen
Helly Hansen primarily sells apparel for the outdoors. They have resellers, as well as their own brick-and-mortar stores, and website, their digital flagship store. The Helly Hansen site has a commerce part with a great catalogue that includes everything a customer would expect as far as product listings and detail pages.
What really sets the site apart from the competition, however, is its content. This is where the Helly Hansen stories come to life, it’s where the brand and product experiences can be delivered in different ways, more immersive and interesting. It includes scrollytelling timelines, sustainability reports, in-depth manufacturing and material descriptions, as well as a glossary, explainers, hiking tips, packing guides, news updates and all kinds of other stories. One of the things that is extra interesting, is how well they manage to emphasize the personal tone and aspect of their content, and we are happy to have been able to help them get this far.
This type of personal and engaging content triggers emotions and builds trust. It works very well and especially so in the current age of synthetic content, flooded with seemingly super cool and engaging stuff that turns out not to not feel real.
Staff AI Chatbot Solution for Elon
Elon is one of the few remaining players in the fiercely competitive field that is the Swedish electronics and home appliances market. They’re doing remarkably well, but one of their challenges has been being able to assist customers, giving them detailed information on all items in their immense catalogue. Traditionally this has been approached by training the staff in using product information databases, internal sales documentation, etc.
The new approach to this, that Vaimo has been working on with Elon, is giving the product information data and other sources of information to an AI chatbot, and then letting staff find the information they need through the AI. This approach lets the staff leverage the amazing capabilities of AI while keeping the human connection between customers and staff. This is another example of how we try to preserve the human connection in the whirlwind of tech innovation.
How Vaimo can help
We are a full-service agency in the field of digital commerce and customer experiences, and we deliver consulting, design, development, support, and analytics services to brands, retailers, manufacturers, and organizations, all over the world.
At Vaimo, we believe that experience is everything. It’s at the heart of everything we do, and central to our way of thinking. Our goal is for the experience to be excellent, whether it’s the end customer experience, our client’s team experience, or the experience of having us as a partner. With us, your digital project is in safe hands.
Find out more about our projects and how we work with our clients below.
