Curious about the entrepreneurial adventure behind inspiring brands, Brand and Strategic Professional Martijn Arets decided to quit his job, hand in his lease car, ignore all uncertainties and follow his dream. For five months, he travelled more than 15,000 kilometres across Europe in a one-of-a-kind 1971 Volkswagen T2 camper van, meeting with the founders, CEOs and brand managers of 20 authentic European brands in what was to prove a unique trip: Brand Expedition. On popular demand, he has bundled the lessons and stories behind 20 appealing European brands such as Lego, Mini, Skype, The Body Shop and Adidas to create Brand Expedition, the book. More information? Check www.brand-expedition.com or send Martijn a Tweet: @martijnarets.

1. READ OUT LOUD
THE STORY BEHIND
- SKYPE -
NO-BUDGET CONNECTING

2. BEFORE YOU START….
please look into your camera and tell
us slowly your name, city and
country… Then you can start reading
this paragraph out loud… Have fun!

3. “Every day, I am surprised by our
numbers. Especially if you realize
that we have only been around for
seven years. This year we had a new
record: 25 million users online
simultaneously.” As of March 2011,

4. at peak times, approximately 30
million concurrent users are logged
into Skype at any given time. “During
Skype’s early years, many telecom-
providers feared Skype’s fast-growing
popularity. They had been sitting

5. pretty for years and looked askance at
Skype’s rapid growth. Luckily, things
have changed, and we now work
together with large telecom providers
such as Verizon, from the U.S. With
the imminent arrival of the new

6. generation of smart phones, there is
no future in making money on call
minutes. Telecom providers would do
better to focus on mobile data traffic,
whereby it does not matter whether
the content is speech, video, Internet

7. or e-mail. The provision of services to
consumers has once again become
what it is all about.”

8. - END OF RECORDING-