Title	FINNGENERATOR
Brand	FINNISH TOURIST BOARD
Product/Service	VISIT FINLAND
Category	A09. USE OR INTEGRATION OF DIGITAL OR SOCIAL MEDIA
Entrant Company	SEK & GREY Helsinki, FINLAND
Contributing Company	SEK & GREY Helsinki, FINLAND
Contributing Company 2	BYROO Helsinki, FINLAND
Media Agency	VOITTO HELSINKI Helsinki, FINLAND

Name	Company	Position
Minna Kaitala	SEK/Grey	Brand Development Director
Ville Granroth	SEK/Grey	Art Director
Sami Korjus	SEK/Grey	Copywriter
Sami Lanu	SEK/Grey	Strategist
Tarja Koskela	SEK/Grey	Producer
Sari Haavisto	Media Agency Voitto	Managing Director
Iida Marjosalmi	Media Agency Voitto	Planner
Jussi Haavisto	Media Agency Voitto	Planner
Outi Karppanen	Media Agency Voitto	Campaign Coordinator
Henri Kaukonen	Media Agency Voitto	Planner
Ville Huumo	Byroo	Senior Developer
Markus Karikivi	Byroo	Project Manager

The Campaign

Our target group modern humanists have already seen the world’s metropolises. They appreciate quality of life, pure nature and responsibility. That is exactly what Finland offers. Our goal was to increase awareness of Finland and in long term get tourists to come to our humble country. We compete against other countries with very larger marketing budgets. Finland is known in Japan through its brands, but not as a travel destination. Why would they travel far away to north? Finland doesn't have a very know history or famous buildings. We have nature. When we saw the forest from the trees, we saw that our nature is full of stories and potential. More people go online on their mobile devices. So maybe you don’t need nimble stars from the 80's to make a viral hit. All you need is something really simple and fast, like your own name. Because people are funny – they are ready to do almost anything just to see their own names. And that’s how the Finngenerator was born. It was very small and it cost very little. It was based on the natural Finnish environment and on Finnish mythology.

Results

Only 0.4 % of travelers end up in Finland. The challenge is how to grow Finland's awareness and get people to visit visitfinland.com. People all over the world use mobile devices more and more to go online. In the midst of a hectic world, they are more interested in quick, easy and personal things. Like for example your own name. Because people are funny – they are ready to do almost anything just to see their own names. Thus was born Finngenerator, mobile optimized website, where people could change their names in to Finnish names. Suddenly Finland and being Finnish became a personal matter and the need to share online grew. The message about the Finngenerator started small and quietly on Twitter in Japan. And to everyone’s surprise, that’s all it took. A snowball got rolling. We harnessed the WOM with some quick PR and online advertising. The key to conquer the world was mobile site (70% of visit from Japan were from mobile). It helped that the site was designed not to be commercial and invasive.

We recognized Japanese people appreciate nature and seek meaning from it, and nature we had. We believed that changing their own name to an exotic Finnish name would be addictive, because most people are interested in their selves. Through a personal reward we left stronger than average awareness of Finland and got people to share the content in social media.

Over 1.3 million foreigners changed their name into in Finngenerator. Visitfinland.com received over 2.4 million unique visitors from 227 different countries (767% growth compared to 2013). And 36% of all traffic came from mobile devices. Finngenerator names were shared 352 292 times in Facebook and 45 929 times in Twitter. The gained media was worth over 2.7 million euros. Visitfinland.com number of visitors has stayed record high after the campaign (+27% growth in visitors during summer compared to 2013). Also there was an increase of 30 502 in overnight travelers in May-June (excluding Russians) compared to 2013. These travelers spent over 12 million euros in their travel to Finland.