Sofia Ulver

AdDay 2017: “From Consumer to Activist,” May 11, Stockholm

At the bizzy wizzy AdDay, for Sweden’s various brand owners to meet and get inspired, I spoke about the interesting shift in roles where both consumers AND companies together become activists. Hence, the market increasingly becomes an arena for political positioning. Where national political parties (unfortunately) fail to influence the globalized world, consumers (unfortunately) have to lean more and more upon other actors to represent them. This is where the new branding paradigm comes in; brands and consumers in a symphonic co-play in political activism.

“The Changing Consumer Landscape”, Burenstamdagen, Stockholm

Speaking about what’s going on in the consumer cultural landscape, in the company of Henrik Mittelman and Alexander Bard among others. What’s bubbling and what’s not? What is the future consumer culture like in relation to investments and capital? The various talks during this day will result in a Burenstam edited anthology on trends in 2015.

“The Future Media Consumer”, Magazine Day, Oslo

Bonniers, Egmont, and Aller invited their customers for a great day with balloons, hors d’oeuvres, popcorn and drinks at the beautiful Egmont building in Oslo. I spoke about societal fragmentation, cooperative culture and the need for new ways to create “camp fire” moments for consumers.

“Rurbanization and The Neogreen Consumer”, 250 Möjligheter, Jönköping

Thisl conference problematizes urbanization as fact and discourse; that 250 of the Swedish municipalities are losing their young (18-25 years) inhabitants to the cities. Is this urbanization an inevitable and unstoppable fate inherent in a globalized market economy? Can we see other tendencies? This day I will talk about the “neogreen consumer” as an example of such tendencies. Even if s/he doesn’t stop the powerful forces of urbanization the neogreen consumer successively nuances and directs new positive attention towards rural and “rurban” life.

Market Evolution and Coproductive Nerd Cultures

Since a year back me and my colleagues at Lund University, together with a network of international affiliates, run a talked-about research project on the evolution of markets from a consumer culture and market system perspective. We interview, observe, photograph, collect diaries and hang out with all kinds of actors (media actors, bloggers, brand producers, suppliers, consumers, shop owners, etc) involved in various passionate communities (popularly speaking habituated by consumer “nerds” who often know more about a company’s products than the company itself does). If you know of some interesting “nerds” or emerging markets please let me know. We are always curious.

Women in a changing Consumer Society- Allerdagarna, Oct 2012, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö

At the Aller days (an Aller Media event) I talk about the woman in the changing consumer society. Women’s structural and cultural power is increasing almost all over the world. How does this change consumer trends at a whole and how do these in turn change women (and men)? In the new reinvention of capitalism (what Anatole Kaletsky calls Capitalism Generation 4) the system shift celebrates new values that traditionally have been called “feminine”. Given that Capitalism Generation 3 was of the more “masculine” kind, these new “feminine” (socially constructed, yes indeed) values will change the world.