When we began working with Josephine Adorelle of Aimo Solution, we knew of her impressive and well-established background in the electric automotive industry.
Having spent years working on programs for Renault and Tesla, she recently settled into her role as the General, Marketing, PR and IR Manager for the highly anticipated electric car-sharing service, Aimo. The service, which aims to put riders in the driver’s seat, allows a customer to reserve and pick up a charged electric-only car anywhere in the designated range of Stockholm’s city center, aka the Homezone. A customer can drive it up to 300 kilometers (the maximum distance available on a full charge), have access to pre-paid parking spots, never have to pay a toll, and drop it off in range for the next rider…ahem, driver. Pretty enticing concept, eh?
We knew that in her newest position, she was in need of a media planning software that would streamline her marketing processes and simplify her team’s reporting.
As a newer client, we sat down with Josephine to discuss what she saw as current opportunities to enhance the Aimo service and processes as well as potential barriers to the brand’s success and how to mitigate those risks.
Read on to hear what Josephine had to say about how they prepared for their October 2018 launch, the top services and softwares that are serving them right now, and how Mediatool is taking the pressure off of organizing their media planning efforts.
MT: First of all, thanks so much for sitting down with us today, Josephine. Can you tell us a bit about where you were before Aimo?
JA: I’ve been working with electric vehicles for quite a few years now. I started as a product manager, responsible for French auto manufacturer, Renault’s, launch of their electric vehicle program in the Nordics. And then after my time there, I began a position working for Tesla building up and promoting their charging network and Supercharger stations, predominantly in Sweden. And now, of course, I am with Aimo!
MT: What an incredible experience to work with brands like Renault and Tesla. And how exciting to be starting on the ground floor with a company like Aimo! So, how long have you been with Aimo?
JA: Believe it or not, the company was only founded this year, 2018. I joined the team in May!
MT: And Aimo is an electric car-sharing service…
JA: Yep. It’s the first of its kind to hit the streets of Stockholm -and I’m super excited about it!
MT: Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind Aimo and its history?
JA: Of course. Aimo, run by Aimo Solution AB, was established in spring 2018 and is owned by Sumitomo Corporation, one of the world’s largest investment and trading companies in Japan. In Sweden, Sumitomo Corporation also owns automotive distributor SC Motors Sweden, based in Stockholm. The word Aimo is actually a compound name, which is pretty cool! Just as the company’s services are intended to connect people and places, the word Aimo, itself is a composition of AI, standing for “artificial intelligence” (it also means love in Japanese!), and MO, which stands for “mobility”.
MT: That’s pretty fascinating! With a service like the one Aimo provides, people might think it requires a really big team of people. But tell us, does Aimo subscribe to the “more-is-more” or “less-is-more” mentality when hiring?
JA: At Aimo, we value being a small team of people. At first, there were only five of us but that number more than doubled as we prepared for our October ‘18 launch. But no matter how popular our service becomes, Aimo will always remain a lean and agile team ready to adapt and be proactive in our market. We don’t feel a desire to grow our staff needlessly. We aim to be efficient but are committed to staying nimble!
MT: As Aimo’s Head of Marketing, what have you identified as being the company’s primary marketing prerogative?
JA: Aimo is quick, easy, and in the moment. We believe – as a modern, tech brand – that digital communication is the way to communicate. Therefore, we’ve gone bold for our launch with a campaign that is 100% digital with social media as the main focus. It’s given us the opportunity to analyze every step we take while offering quick feedback from the market to inform us of whether our communication has been good enough. It’s also given us the option to direct different messages to different target groups, which, any marketer knows, is a crucial variable in analyzing a message and measuring its success.
MT: Does Aimo have plans to expand outside of Stockholm?
JA: We are launching Stockholm as the first city, but aim to be an international brand within a short time!
MT: How does Aimo align itself with marketing tools that serve it as a start-up right now, but also have the potential to grow alongside Aimo? What have been a handful of invaluable software/services/tools you’ve used in your marketing efforts?
JA: Well, this would be a good opportunity to bring up our use of Mediatool. What we appreciate with Mediatool is that we can have 100% visibility of all of our costs related to our marketing efforts, both during set-up and for specific campaigns. We’re also preparing and adding categories such as Stockholm city so that we can easily draw comparisons from when we add new cities in the future. We really just started our campaigns but it’s already been a very helpful tool to work with on a daily basis! Besides Mediatool, we’re working with a number of other tools and softwares to help organize ourselves and our processes. They are:
We have a specific thread called “Marketing” where everyone in the group can add interesting topics related to marketing. I also personally use Slack to send reminder notes to myself. Asana is where we create tasks. I actually also use Asana as a reminder to my calendar of the tasks my team and I have to do. It’s so convenient and helpful to have sub-tasks also! We have a Trello board with our web-designer so that we can follow all the steps in the development process and move from one status to another.
MT: Very cool! And we agree, all great tools. How has using Mediatool, in particular, improved the media planning process for Aimo? We’d love to know which feature(s) have been most effective for your business and why.
JA: I’ve been surprised with how much I’ve used the dashboard! At first I thought I’d only use it to make presentations, but it’s given me a clear picture into the money we’re spending on each media mix and if we should change something we have planned. It’s also been instrumental in informing me about when I should be negotiating with our suppliers since I now can see how much I’ve planned to spend in total on each.
MT: How has Mediatool been flexible and accommodating for Aimo?
JA: In a number of ways. For example, with Mediatool, we’ve been able to create a structure where we can have multiple campaigns running concurrently; one that details all of our costs related to setting up the company, another specifically for the launch and now, another for our post-launch expenditures. It’s given us a strong understanding of our actual costs related to starting up the business as well as regular, ongoing marketing expenses. I also love that we can invite our agencies to work on their portions of the campaign right in the tool.
Structure with Mediatool
MT: In your opinion, what do you think is the most challenging part of marketing a new business in 2018 and beyond?
JA: Being able to engage users in a way where they become genuinely more interested in your brand, care to interact with you and want to be part of your world. That’s what we’re striving for as we develop and fine-tune our marketing efforts.
MT: We fully agree. Are there any additional marketing “how-to’s”, “tips & tricks” or insights that you’ve gained during your tenure in the auto-marketing space that you can share with our audience?
JA: Find your purpose. Your product or service might not appeal to everyone’s needs but that’s ok because it’s better to be the best product or service for your specific target group and focus on making that niche collectively happy than trying to be all over the place, accommodating everyone.
And another thing…
Be patient; changing a behavior or getting an audience to try something new takes time – especially if you’re in the automotive industry! So, give it the time and space it deserves. Recognise it’s not going to be an overnight success but once you’ve laid the groundwork, you’ll be able to make the progress you’ve had in mind.
Be patient
Aimo launched their revolutionary and eco-friendly car-sharing on October 31 of 2018. So, if you’re based in Stockholm, for quick, easy, and environmentally conscious transportation.
We’re excited to see what’s in store for them as we continue to work together!
